I wish I had done this when we first moved in, but I was convinced that I needed a big yard . . . and we definitely don't have a Big Yard (frankly we barely have a yard).
I had filed away the dream for a laundry line along with my dream of a BIG vegetable garden, a flock of chicken and a goat.
While I would need a bigger yard for my dream vegetable garden and the goat (the jury is still out on backyard chickens), I could definitely work a laundry line into our little homestead.
I found a retractable clothesline on Amazon. It was perfect because of it's swivel, it can swivel back and forth so that you can fold it away when you're not using it!
Why Install a Clothesline:
- Your dryer accounts for almost 10% of your electricity use each year.
- A simple shirt, during all of its years of use, can send up to 9 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere!
- Drying your clothes on the line saves you money!
- It saves your clothes. Dryers are rough on your clothes.
- NO ironing!!! Last weekend I hung a bunch of Lee's dress shirts from the work week, I didn't have to iron a single one!
- Everything smells amazing after it's been drying in the breeze!
Tips and Tricks:
- Hang your t-shirts upside down so that the clip marks are on the bottom of the shirts and not at the top where they are more noticeable.
- Smooth out your clothes before you hang them and you'll save yourself having to iron them.
- Use more than two pins for heavier items.
- Fold the top of your towels and sheets over the the line to make sure they don't blow away in the wind!
- If you're worried about the sun fading your clothes turn your clothes inside out before you hang them on the line.
- Keep an eye on the pollen count! If the pollen count is high, and someone in your family has allergies, skip the line and use the dryer.
Hi Ashli, I had a off-topic question based on one of the pictures in this post. You have 2 garden 'things' that have a sphere with arrow through it on top. I think you may have used them in your vegetable garden. I've been wanting one for a flower garden decor, but don't know what they are called in order to google them. Can you help with a name? Thanks! Love your blog.
ReplyDeletethey are called armillary spheres...they are great garden pieces
DeleteYUP Armillary Spheres!
DeleteI love'em!! :)
Lots of Love
Ashli
Awww...I love the clothespins!
ReplyDeleteNothing beats fresh smelling sheets from the outdoor breezes.
ReplyDeleteI agree! It is really refreshing. So nature-like!
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Question: I've got a drying rack that I use for things indoors, but they end up feeling stiff. Does hanging your clothes outside leave them stiff or does the breeze somehow soften them?
ReplyDeleteGenerally leaving them outside makes them a bit stiff, but if there's a breeze they end up SUPER SOFT.
DeleteT-shirts, dress shirts and shorts and PJ's are all fine on the line, I don't line dry our bath towel, and I pop our jeans into the dryer for 5 minutes after they've dried on the line and they are just fine!!!
Hope that helps!
Ashli
I do the same for jeans but it also works for towels. I line dry everything. And just tumble anything that is stiff, or slightly wrinkled, for 5 minutes.
DeleteWe have a large property but I still prefer an unsightly umbrella dryer for hanging laundry. Ours is installed out of the line of sight. I can fit a ton of clothes on it and find it easy to stand in one spot and just spin it to fill it up.
On a warm, breezy day, clothes dry in a fraction of time as in the dryer and many loads at one time. I love it!
Here in Ontario, the Hydro company actually gave away clothes lines to help households reduce aviodable energy use. (I know, very forward thinking of them!) I just relocated ours during a basement purge and am now motivated to put it up.
ReplyDeleteFor those wondering: As for the 'crispness' of clothes that are air dried, IF you find the clothes end up less fluffy (as I do with cotton items dried on my indoor rack), toss them in the dryer on the Air Dry or Fluff mode for 5-10 minutes... at least it's better than the 45 on hot that you would normally use.
For drying t-shirts I've found its best to hang them over the line under their arms. Basically the neck up to the underarms are on one side of the line and the rest of the shirt on the other. Then place the clips in the underarm region. If you hang them by the ends - they'll stretch out and you'll have weird "wings" at the bottom of your shirts.
ReplyDeleteSarah
I was just going to say the same thing. My grandma taught me that when I was a girl. Bless her. Eliza
Deleteohhh great tip!
DeleteLove it! We just started drying our clothes out on a line this summer as well. Your bird clothespins are so cute.
ReplyDeleteLove the clothes pins also:) Just darling. I hang all my clothes outside too, and found if I put the m in the dryer for 3-5 minutes before hanging them on the line, it gets out any wrinkles and takes off excess lint. I notice a huge savings by line drying:) You go girl!!
ReplyDeleteI love to hang clothes too but can't now that I live in a condo. You're so lucky that your subdivision allows you to hang clothes outside. Most don't. I used to do the same as Dawn. Toss them into the dryer for a few minutes. The steam it creates gets the wrinkles out.
ReplyDeleteThe birdie clothespins are completely adorable. Your blog is so refreshing =) Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeletelove line dried clothes/sheets/blankets, but a lot of areas do not allow them...boo!
ReplyDeleteLooks great! I need to line-dry my stuff more often! I especially love the fun touch with the birdie clothespins, since we've just got the standard cheap wooden ones. :)
ReplyDeleteGreat solution. I clicked on the Amazon link - does it work from Canada?
ReplyDeleteYou can only ship it with in the states. We live very close to the border and have a p.o. box in the states, so we ship it there.
DeleteSorry,
I wish they would! You could check ebay!!!
Lots of Love
Ashli
You said it yourself..hang shirts upside down..SO why are Lee's shirts hung up that way?
ReplyDeleteA trick I do is throw in the all the clothes into the dryer for a ONE minute BEFORE taking it out to the dry line. It erases wrinkles. In the winter months when its freezing and no one wants to be line drying clothes I hang up all the "good, delicate" clothes in hangers in my garage. I hang all items from the garage door rods (the hanger hooks fit perfectly)
We have the clothesline (make shirt with jute rope hung between two oak trees) on our property, the goats and flock of chicken and a small veggie garden.
I thought she meant real shirts, like business ones - the ones pictured are t-shirts, which don't wrinkle anywhere near as badly as shirts do, and usually come good with a bit of a shake.
DeleteYou've reminded me that I need to organise a new washing line! I hate using the dryer, but our washing line (a classic Australian Hills Hoist) is very exposed, and we live in a windy area... between the ones we had to extricate from trees and bushes, the ones that blew to the ground and got dragged around by the dogs and the ones that disappeared completely (sorry neighbours), it's really not great to use.
ReplyDeleteMy best tip with regards to not ironing shirts is to actually hang them on hangers on the line. I used to use two hangers, with the hooks facing opposite directions, in the hooks that held the line in place, but you can get special hangers for clotheslines too. Wrinkle free since 93!
haha LOVE IT!!! Wrinkle Free since '93
DeleteThanks for the tip!
Lori & Dawn,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your tip about putting them in the dryer for a minute or two. It's funny this post was in my inbox because I just got a ear full from my husband about the wrinkle problem (he wants all his clothes indoor hung dry so clothing racks take up our spare kitchen space 24/7). I'll try your tricks and hope this fixes the issue.
I air dry everything - on the line in the summer, and on a sheila maid in the winter. I guess we're lucky because in the UK it's totally normal, and we've got very high ceilings to accomodate the sheila made with everything out of the way.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a dryer, and never would, I'm far too cheap to spend money drying clothes when the atmosphere will do it for free!
I have a retractable clothesline as well. We use it by the pool to dry our towels. It saves a ton of money!
ReplyDeleteI also love the bird clips! I will be purchasing those! Thank you for posting your Amazon Shop. I would love it if you would do that from time to time in the future.
One question though. I thought you said to hand your t-shirts by the bottom. You have all yours hung by the neck. Did I misunderstand?
Thanks,
Jane
Hi Jane,
DeleteNo you didn't misunderstand. The picture was the photo I took of the very first time I hung laundry out! I didn't know it was best to hang t-shirts from the bottom, I do now, so if you ever see a picture of our hanging laundry the t-shirts will be hanging from the bottom!!!
Hope that helps!!
Lots of Love
Ashli
I love the clothes line too and the pegs are adorable.....I have been hanging all our clothes on the clotheslines by 3 methods:- (1) all undies, jocks, socks go straight onto the IKEA PRESSA Hanging Dryer (16 pegs) $5 - (that item is life changing, trust me). We call it an Octopus because it has sticker "eyes" and then all the legs come down and it looks like an Octopus. No more one sock, one peg or undies business - everything goes on these little babies. THEN - all shirts, skirts,jeans, pants, sorts etc. go straight onto clothes hangers or those skirt hangers with the bulldog clips type of thing. Then other things that don't matter like tea towels, towels, pjs' etc. just go on the line with pegs. Having all the clothes on the line hung up onto hangers there is no double handling.......they are on the hangers and then they come straight back inside and go on the "ironing rack bar thingy". Way way less creases than pegging on the actual line....invest in a little Octopus I have 3 of them (lots of kids school socks). The good thing is also if it rains and you have to race out to the line you are not rushing because you just pick up one Octopus and he has 16 socks hanging off him. It is all so quick now using those methods and no peg marks on the top or bottom of clothing... Love the birdie pegs...they are so cute. Regards Kathy A, Brisbane, Australia
ReplyDeleteIsn't it great?! I hate how clothes feel when they come out of the dryer. I grew up with air-dried clothes (no dryer) and to me if there isn't a little bit of that stiffness, they don't feel clean. I have a folding rack from Ikea that I use now, on my tiny balcony in the summer, and in the main room of my studio in the winter (I'm in Minnesota, and drying the clothes inside is super quick + ups the humidity slightly!).
ReplyDeleteAnother negative for dryers: those sheets that most people use for static and stuff are really horrid for you -- carcinogenic and completely unregulated! http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20097302-10391704.html Honestly, I find that I have some shortness of breath if I'm around stuff that's been dried with them (for example, sleeping on "clean" sheets visiting friends).
Seriously, line dried clothes are the best! In fact, sheets dried on the line in the sun make the bed feel all fresh and sunny too! We're just into Spring here but I still dried everything on the line during Winter. I dry everything on the line, even the towels, but put them in the dryer for 5 minutes to "finish them off" and fluff them up. Perfect!
ReplyDeleteLesley
xx
Love this! but my sweetie still says no to a cloths line. I dont get it yes to chicks but no to the line help me to figure that one out!? lol Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteToo cute. We are not allowed to have a clothesline in our backyard. Home owners association, plus we don't really have a private backyard...so hanging my delicates out to dry could end up on national tv every now and again. There's a golf tourney filmed once a year and our back yard is right up against the t box for the pretty 9th hole (right over the water towards the clubhouse). Tradeoffs, I guess.
ReplyDeleteI do miss the scent of line dried clothes (from growing up).
I have one of these huge line drying mills in my backyard, trust me it takes a lot of space, but outside drying is the best to me. The smell!
ReplyDeleteTumble drying I use only for towels but if iI have space outside they will go on the line and end in de tumbledryer for a few minutes for the fluffiness. Have to check out the octopus from IKEA tipped by Kathy though.
I love the idea of retractable clothesline. This got me thinking. Thanks for sharing this idea and thanks for the tips too. It is really useful.
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