Clotheslines

My first house (bought in the 70s and lived in until 2010) was a tiny crackerbox. I had a washing machine but no dryer. I dried the clothes on a clothesline in the summer, and would put them on a rack over the floor furnace in the winter (added humidity to the house.)

As others have said, there's nothing like outdoor-dried sheets on the bed.
 
"The clothes pins you can get now are only the ones with the metal spring and they often need 'adjustment'.
If I can handle the garden this year, Maybe I will string a line from the trees again. The last couple rotted away. I didn't have the plastic kind."

The old two-legged clothespins were all made in Maine I think, along with most of our wooden toothpicks. The Chinese marketed cheap knock offs that are not as sturdy and don't work well, but it was enough to run the American pins off the market when the demand decreased. I visited a homestead in the wilds of Alaska a number of years ago and thy had a gasoline-powered wringer washer (the wringer was manual I think). The water had to be hauled up the hill from the river and, of course, was dried on a line IN THE SUMMER. When things got cold, they would heat up the sauna and while it was warming they would haul the water for the sauna and the laundry and store it in a bucket in the sauna. When the sauna was hot, they would add a bit of water to the stove to fill the place with steam and begin hand-washing the laundry Including the clothes they had on. They would work naked doing laundry and just loafing in the sauna, occasionally going out and jumping in the snow to cool off. Once it was said that in the middle of the process, somebody spotted a moose by the river. The homesteader grabbed a rifle from by the sauna door, and ran down to shoot the moose. His wife got dressed and took his clothes to him as the moose was on the other side of the river and they would have to cross the thin ice to get the meat. They went back to the sauna to finish the laundry and warm up before processing the carcass.



 
I can remember being sent out to get frozen clothing off the lines. It always amazed me that they'd be stiff as boards when I brought them in but would soften up and be perfectly dry shortly after.

One thing that I remember with fondness is my grandmother hanging up her "unmentionables" on the clothesline inside pillowcases or between sheets. Heaven forbid that a passerby should see her "dainties" hanging out there.
 
I remember those clothespin bags that hung on the line. My mother always made sure to bring the clothespins inside with the laundry. That way they would last longer, not being exposed to the elements if left on the clothesline.

At our house Monday was laundry day and Tuesday was ironing day. My poor mother; I never realized how hard she worked.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Many HOAs and municipalities tried to restrict clotheslines in Texas, and after that, clotheslines slowly disappeared. They are rare these days, which finally prompted the "Right to Dry" law.

In 2015, Texas Senate Bill 1626 was passed and went into effect in September 2015. The law prohibits any restrictions on the right of Texas residents to use clotheslines or other traditional methods of hanging laundry to dry. The law was meant to promote energy efficiency and sustainability by reducing the use of electric and gas-powered dryers.

Before the law was passed, many municipalities and homeowners' associations had rules prohibiting residents from hanging laundry outside, citing concerns about property value or aesthetics. It is important to note that homeowner's associations and municipalities can still regulate the placement of clotheslines, but they cannot outright prohibit them.
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I did not know there were restrictions on having clotheslines, or had tried to restrict it.
 
I always just left the clothespins on the line. They did wear out faster, but it made it much faster when I was hanging up clothes because I used the same pattern each time.
Big sheets always went at the same place, etc.

I enjoyed how fresh the sheets were.
But it is hard for me to get down the back steps now, and I couldn’t begin to do it if I had a basket of wet clothing in one arm. So, even if we had a clothesline, I wouldn’t use it nowadays.
If I do put out the throw rugs or something to dry that I don't want in the dryer, I hang them over the railing on the porch ramp, which is easy for me to get to.
 
Yvonne Smith said:
I always just left the clothespins on the line. They did wear out faster, but it made it much faster when I was hanging up clothes because I used the same pattern each time.
Big sheets always went at the same place, etc.

I enjoyed how fresh the sheets were.
But it is hard for me to get down the back steps now, and I couldn’t begin to do it if I had a basket of wet clothing in one arm. So, even if we had a clothesline, I wouldn’t use it nowadays.
If I do put out the throw rugs or something to dry that I don't want in the dryer, I hang them over the railing on the porch ramp, which is easy for me to get to.
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I was remembering that sometimes the older, discolored clothespins would leave marks on the whites which was unacceptable to my mother. :LOL: My brother bought her a dryer about 10 years before she died; I don't believe she ever turned it on. She wanted nothing to do with a clothes dryer or a microwave.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Yes, many metro areas (and HOAs) still have strict rules about clotheslines.
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I guess they don't want see any holey undies hanging on the line flapping in the breeze. :LOL: One would think all those environmentalist would prefer clotheslines to reduce energy. I guess they can't make money off of clotheslines. 😁
 
Krystal Shay said:
I guess they don't want see any holey undies hanging on the line flapping in the breeze. :LOL: One would think all those environmentalist would prefer clotheslines to reduce energy. I guess they can't make money off of clotheslines. 😁
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I think a lot of it was due to HOA over-reach. But the reason behind the "right to dry" law in Texas was exactly as you said... environmentally more sensible. How sad that laws have to be passed to regulate how people do laundry.
 
If you line dry here you will get a gentle recoloring which will not wash out. Oklahoma red dirt. Not to mention the steady wind. Be prepared to get your laundry in Arkansas:)
I have dowels mounted on closet hanging rod hardware ìn several doors high enough for me to reach and stained to match the door frame. Lots of heavy duty hangers. Sheets and towels go in the dryer.
 
Mary Robi said:
I can remember being sent out to get frozen clothing off the lines. It always amazed me that they'd be stiff as boards when I brought them in but would soften up and be perfectly dry shortly after.

One thing that I remember with fondness is my grandmother hanging up her "unmentionables" on the clothesline inside pillowcases or between sheets. Heaven forbid that a passerby should see her "dainties" hanging out there.
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My aunt and my mother hung laundry on their pulley clotheslines all winter, but my wife's mother dried her stuff on lines in the basement near the furnace in winter. Even in winter, our laundry would dry outside but it sometimes took a couple days. Here we dried outside in the summer, but the winters were just too cold to deal with we laundry. We had a frame that we sometimes used by the woodstove when we heated with wood. It was quicker than the drier and added humidity to our very dry winter air.
 
When I were a youngin' all we had was a very old school tub washer with a wringer and a clothesline. If memory serves, the washer looked something like this:

shopping
 
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