Ironing, linen and textiles in Delft
Look at the paintings of Johannes Vermeer and his Delft contemporaries: it is almost impossible to find an interior scene from Delft's golden age without white linen. The milkmaid wears an impeccably starched white cap. The letter-reader leans on a perfectly smooth tablecloth with a Turkish covering. The woman with the balance stands in a room where every piece of household linen, down to her own collar, has been laid out, washed and ironed by someone in that house.
That image was no fantasy. In the seventeenth century Delft was a wealthy city in which the merchant class — VOC directors, brewers, faience makers — kept a strict and meticulously regulated household. Hand-woven Dutch linen from the northern provinces was bought here by the ell, worked into sheets and table linen, and treated for an entire working day every fortnight: pre-washed, rinsed in the canal water of the Oude Delft, dried in the courtyard behind the house, ironed on long, smooth tables in the living room. Painters of interiors used those whites as light reflectors in their compositions — which is why Vermeer and De Hooch always seem so luminous.
Delft's linen is gone, but the university, the burghers, and the young families in Voorhof, Tanthof and Vrijenban still produce a full laundry basket every week. A teaching assistant at the TU has, by definition, less time than a seventeenth-century maid.
Since 2013 we have been driving out from our laundry on the Henricuskade on fixed mornings through Delft. We collect your laundry, iron shirts, blouses and table linens smooth, and deliver it back on the agreed day — with the same delivery driver, every week.
How does Strijkservice Haaglanden work in Delft?
For residents of Delft our service works exactly as in the rest of Haaglanden: on a fixed day of the week our driver comes by, picks up your laundry bag and brings your laundry back clean and crisply ironed. No appointment needed — your routine is set.
You get one regular driver and a fixed pickup rhythm so you always know what to expect. No carrying, no full drying racks in the living room, no evenings at the ironing board.
Everything is handled in our own laundry on Henricuskade in The Hague. Shirts, blouses, table linen, bed and bath textiles — we iron it the way it should go back into the cupboard at home, neatly folded and ready to use.