No Limits Ladies.com

Maybe it’s the farm girl in me but when we got our house, the first thing I had the hubby do was put up a clothesline. Ours runs along the side of the house, lower than the fence (so the neighbors don’t have to see it and even people in our backyard can’t see it).

I don’t hang in the winter (some clothesline fanatics do – the freeze dry technique) but once spring comes, I’m out there like a dirty…no, wait clean shirt. I can certainly tell the difference between drying inside and out (no matter the dryer sheet, the smell is never the same) and there’s something, I don’t know, homey about seeing my linens moving in the breeze.

Does this save money? Yeah, a bit if you hang laundry for years. A basic line costs about $20 if you do it on the cheap (and don’t get those lovely wooden clothespins that I put on my birthday list). Does it save time? Not really though often I don’t have iron dress shirts if I use hangers (I hate ironing…I once ironed early in the morning and managed to give myself a third degree burn on my arm, not my brightest moment). A time saving trick is putting the pins in an apron. Lets me hang with both hands.

The big win is really the environmental angle. Harnessing the sun’s energy instead of processed electricity. Also clothes last longer (you know what dryer lint is? Bits of your clothes). I had a favorite pair of pants. By the spring they were almost ready for the scrap bin. They lasted through the summer clothesline season, then the first time I put them in the dryer…done. Oh, and don’t forget the smell. Nice.

Project Laundry List lists some other reasons for hang drying.