and they smell so good when you take them in!

Love the smell of sun dried sheets, but few people hang their laundry out around here due to insects, beetles in particular.

Reminds me of my backyard growing up. Mom used to hang the wash and only used our dryer if she had to.

I think my mother just loved the fact that she had a backyard large enough to put up 4 poles and line!

Stiff, air-dried towels take me back.

LOVE sleeping on sheets that have just come in off the "line"!

I hang all of our laundry on the line. As soon as the snow melts enough for me to get to the clothesline.

Oh you guys! How can you do this to me.

I grew up with almost all the wash on the line (as weather would allow) in NE Ohio. Sadly, for the past 13 years, we have lived in places that forbid such a thing.

Can we figure out a way for me to send stuff to you?

Well the wind really picked up and nearly blew my sheets right off the line! Never did find two of my clothespins.

Jasdip, do you use the old fashioned pins or the the spring type? I don't think they make the ones with the spring clip very well anymore, they break sometimes after a couple of uses.

I use the spring clips too. Like you they often break away from the clip.

Ahh, memories of Grandma. She had MS, but fought to continue doing as much as possible. They had an old farmhouse with the laundry in the basement. She had an old grocery cart, and she would wheel the laundry out to the line. As long as she could lean on the cart, she could hang stuff up.

They were well off but frugal. I'm not sure there were any new towels in that house in the final 30 years. They would be almost see-through, stiff as a board and as rough as a loofah. I don't think there was any fabric softener in that laundry room!!

My best night sleep is on line dried sheets! It was how I grew up...mom even put sheets on the line when there was snow on the ground

Brings back memories. I remember helping my Mom as early as 4 YO. My sister and I would hand her the clothes from the basket so she didn't have to bend over.

Out here clothes get covered with bugs and dust because it is so dry during the non rainy part of the year. I miss the smell.

nope not here in se mi!! they'd be covered with what I call summer snow...the white seed pods are a mess this year...thank goodness it rained to clear the air for a day!!

In Southern Minnesota we hung clothes out in winter. I recall the stiff union suits (long underwear) being brought in to be hung on a rack to finish drying. Smelled wonderful.

caflowerluve and susanjf, makes you wonder how your grandmothers and great grandmothers managed doesn't it? I know the Amish have lines on their long roofed porches to help in inclement weather, and my own mother used to have clothes lines in the cellar - dirt cellar at that; but in other cases where mother nature would be a nuisance I can't imagine. Maybe on lines inside or in special "drying rooms"??

Before I had a dryer, I'd bring clothes up from the cellar where my washer was and drape them over the furnace registers in the winter time on those wooden racks. I don't recall ever hanging them outside in winter. Of course I was only washing for one person so there wasn't alot at one time.Oh, and for big items like linens and blankets I went to the laundry mat - UGH. Eventually I got a washer and dryer UPstairs in a newly remodeled pantry/laundry room, what a relief.

My dryer gets very little use. I only use it if it's pouring rain. I hate clothes dried that way. Today my wash dried in an hour, and I put the sheets right back on the bed. They and the towels have that stiff starched liked feel and the towels are so absorbent. I have antique clothes pins I use because what they make today aren't worth buying. My only problem, because my lines are near my beehives, sometimes there's a tiny bee poop on a sheet.

Due to circumstances with Dr. and Mrs. Crappy-Neighbor --- their two large dogs would take their "dump" next to the fence where my clothesline was located and the neighbors NEVER picked it up (even though there is a city ordinance that you do so); I had to contend with the awful smell and a large number of flies on hot humid days (I also turned them into the nice people at the Animal Shelter who promptly ticketed the neighbors with several infractions. In the mean time, Super Hubby to the rescue.... As an alternative to hanging clothes outdoors because of this, we made a move indoors. Hubby was kind enough to move some stored things around and install 6 lines indoors (enough for 2 loads of laundry and a couple drying racks as options for any over-flow) in a small unfinished basement room 8-years ago, and I have never looked back after decades of using the great outdoors solar clothes dryer. I thought I would only use the basement lines as a back-up (cold and wet weather), but it turned out to be the best way to dry clothes.

The spring we moved into our current house (a new construction without a landscaped yard), I strung two lines between the car bays in the garage so I could hang clothes out to dry while our landscaping was being done, which included a privacy fence and a laundry courtyard/patio just outside the back garage door for the umbrella clothesline. Hubby built a bench with an umbrella to shade it where I folded the clothes as I took them off the line and put them in the basket. We could remove the clothesline and replace it with a large market/patio umbrella when entertaining outdoors, and use the bench for additional seating. I never had to walk off the concrete patio to hang my laundry. No wet feet from the dew in the grass, and no bits of freshly-mown grass to track into the house. And the space was lighted, so I could hang the laundry before the sun came up. An outdoor drying-center dream world - just as we designed it.

In the basement drying room we installed a ceiling fan over the lines to aid drying. On the back wall we have a 6-foot clothes rod where we put things that normally hang on hangers to dry. They go from the basement to the closets - already on a hanger.

Here are the indoor benefits (and I still have the option of hanging outdoors):

1. No sun-bleached colors.

2. No allergen spores, cottonwood seeds (which are currently flying) clinging to the fabric, bird poop, wasps/June bug hiding in a sleeve/pants leg.... And after wheat harvest when the farmers burn stubble fields, I can unexpectedly get a shower of black stubble carbon on my laundry hanging outdoors (which means you have to wash it again).

3. Elastic lasts a looooot longer. In fact, all our clothing last much longer than using a clothes dryer or an outdoor line.

4. I don't have to watch the sky and hurry home should a stray rain shower move in because I have clothes on the line.

5. The harsh Kansas winds, especially when combined with the destructive UV rays of the sun, destroy fabrics.

6. Hubby and I do the laundry together on Tuesday and Saturday night when we are watching TV. Saturday morning we wash the bedding and towels (with the option to hang them outside) and they dry before we do two loads of laundry in the evening. Since I'm the early riser (3 a.m. each morning), I fold the laundry and bring it upstairs.

I miscalculated! It is raining. The washing machine finished about 10 minutes ago. I ah holding out right now, seeing if it will quit.

I no longer have a good indoor drying option. I now live in VERY humid Florida, and hanging wet/damp clothing indoors is really not an option.

Converted Dale to drying outside, and we haven't used the dryer much since I moved here.

Moni

OklaMoni-

If it's not hot and humid in the summer here in Kansas, then it's hot and dry, and that often happens on the same day - high humidity in the morning and low in the afternoon (or not and it just stays humid). A dehumidifier is a MUST indoors about 6-months out of the year, especially if you have a basement. My daughter lives in Tennessee and she uses two dehumidifiers (one upstairs and one down) or all she gets is fuzzy mold growing everywhere.

I use one of these. It's anchored to the corner of the garage and can span across to a hook under the eaves of the old outhouse. I can't tell you how long I've had it, must be built good and sound as it stays out amidst the Virginia Creeper year round. retractable clothes line

Didn't buy it at Target but at the local hardware store. Just enough line for one load of laundry at a time. Here in Amish country you see lines traveling sometimes nearly into the tree tops, so there must be pulley systems used.

grainlady - your set-up sounds great.

Our grandchildren were telling us about the elaborate birthday parties they'd attended recently. When my DIL and I brought up the birthday party games we'd played as children, we had to stop to explain Pin the Tail on the Donkey. That was easier than explaining Clothespins in the Bottle. We had to explain clothespins *and* milk bottles. We gave up before getting into the Telephone game.

I buy older clothespins at estate sales. Even bought a bag of the wood no spring kind. There's a section of the federal clean air act that supersedes any HOA rules forbidding clotheslines. I have the statute number at home, I'm on vacation at the moment. A HOA can't forbid clotheslines ( even though they think they can) , however they make dictate which type they want to allow.

Why don't HOAs like clotheslines? Maybe the neighbor's husband will see your knickers?

We use the Pee Wee Herman vernacular - GIANT UNDERPANTS, but knickers sounds so much nicer (LOL). I hang underwear on the inside lines of my umbrella clothes line and everything else after that, so they are away from prying eyes. Things on hangers are tucked into the exposed line on the end "ribs" so they don't blow off. Delicates and socks I hang in the laundry room on a wall-mounted, pull-out drying rack (no pins necessary - just toss things over a bar). This is also where I dry used washcloths, hand towels, kitchen/cleaning towels/rags (or anything else that is wet/damp) to dry before they get tossed into the appropriate dirty clothes basket (which are also lined up on a shelf in the laundry room over the W/D. I have a small electric fan handy if I want to speed the drying process a bit.

I use a two-line system for pants/slacks/jeans and hang them by the pants leg hem (seams together to form a crease) - one leg on one line and one on the next line in front of it - so the crotch is exposed to more air and dries quicker. The additional weight from the waist/body of the pants at the bottom helps to pull the wrinkles out of them and helps set the crease and the open waistline dries faster.

FYI - clothes line drying science: Don't spin your clothes in the washer on the fastest spin cycle (which is designed to save on energy and drying time in the clothes dryer - and at a 1,000 rpm's or faster is a sure way to set wrinkles). When clothes have a little more moisture in them from a slower spin cycle, the additional weight will help pull the wrinkles out via gravity. My 15-year old Fisher & Paykel washer has a "Spin Hold" spin cycle used for hand washables or line drying. The fabric is wetter, but with fewer wrinkles and things only need a quick "hand pressing" to smooth out any wrinkles - especially nice for things I hang on hangers to dry.

I like to use some of my deceased mother-in-laws really old wood peg pins for certain things (I was the only one who wanted the pegs), but mostly use wood spring-type (which are mostly from when we got married in 1971). Hubby has his own colored plastic pins in a cool lime green pin holder that glides nicely on the line. He was like a little kid with a new toy when we found them at Big Lots. I don't care what he uses. Just the fact he helps with laundry, and can do the laundry just as well as I can, is a generous gift of his time. In our family work is work - no gender attached to it. And work shared is part of being in a loving relationship.

Lovely pictures! I used to use a clothes line when I could, but stopped when I realized I was bringing in allergens to my already-stuffy nose, and especially when a clean load of sheets was "messed upon" by a bird who just ate a meal. I was so mad at having to redo the load. My mom pretty much never used a clothes drier; in the winter she hung them in the basement and garage. She definitely didn't care where the underwear were hung.

This clothes smell thing. It must be a female thing. I grew up with line-dried clothes for the most part. I never smelled this great smell about which I hear so much and so often. Maybe it was the neighborhood or something but it was a quiet residential area, lots of trees, lots of birds, no factories. But there was no great smell. Just a lack of smell which is the purpose of washing clothes IMO. Since I've had my own place I haven't had a true outdoor clothesline and although I thought about it, I never gave it a priority and these days it's pretty much out. There's clotheslines in the basement but seldom used.

Where I DO notice a smell in clothes that I like is when I have stench-free detergent and since I long ago quit using fabric softeners. No chemical or artificial smell. They smell fine to me. And I don't miss any smell from my growing years.

I like my dryer. I like using it. And I like having soft and fluffy towels, jeans, flannel shirts, well, all clothes for that matter. I've never ironed clothes in my life and won't start now! I just don't have a reason to change so no desire to change. Although I would prefer the machines on an upper level. Maybe someday.