Hide-Away Ironing Boards, a Tulsa area 'hidden' treasure

Tuesday, November 18th 2003, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

The business is called Hide-Away Ironing Boards and some folks have been wondering where the Tulsa company has been hiding. As News on 6 business reporter Steve Berg tells us, the company simply moved to a larger building and is doing better than ever.

Hide-Away Ironing Boards was actually in plain sight for years on US Highway 169. But when a "for lease" sign went up, people worried they had fallen victim to the bad economy. "We had a lot of people askin' us, what was going on." Hide-Away Owner Allen Roberts says they're actually expanding and they've moved to a larger building in Broken Arrow. For those who don't know, Hide-Away makes those ironing boards that fold into the wall. The idea came very simply when Roberts was on a trip to see the Statue of Liberty back in 1986. "It was in a hotel and we couldn't find a place to iron, so my wife said, y'know we ought to make those ironing boards like we have at our house." The new foldaway ironing boards are smaller than their old-fashioned cousins and the hinges are designed so they don't have that cartoon habit of falling out when you open the door either. Hide-Away also makes the cabinet that houses the board and most of the models have a nifty swivel feature too. "You can iron anywhere in the house because you can fold it down and then swivel, so you can iron without blocking a walkway." Hide-Away didn't have much visibility, until their big breakthrough in the mid 90's when they got into stores like Home Depot and began riding the home improvement wave. "I never would have thought it would have grown as much as it has now." Roberts says they've quadrupled their business since 1999 and do more business than their two main competitors combined. And you might not have even known they were there. Kind of like their product.