Can we talk clothes lines?

Can't beat the smell of linens dried in the sun! And you are using today's free solar energy instead of paying for fossilized sunshine turned into electricity. Hanging is also better for your clothes if you learn how to do it properly (yes, it is a skill that can be learned!) because the heat of the dryer is very wearing on elastic/lycra fibers.
In my particular situation I just have some washing line strung between a tree and the porch posts, and another line running between the 3 porch posts (which is in shade and undercover, so I can use it if there are showers threatening or for things I'm worried about fading). I'd like a better set up but $5 worth of line is a value that can't be beat. 10 years down the track it still works. (A lot of other people in my neighborhood are really poor so a lot of them just hang stuff on their chain link fences or on hangers on the porch).
Towels and jeans can get pretty stiff but most everything else is fine - if it dries too fast with no wind it will be stiffer, so some shade and a good breeze can be your friends. Sometimes my clothes dry faster outdoors on a breezy summer day than they would in the dryer! When you take stuff off the line you'll want to shake it out with a good hard snap! or two. That helps relax and realigns the fibers which loosens up some of the stiffness.
In Japan we had to hang everything, rain, shine or freezing. That was no fun. It's definitely nice to have a choice. Sometimes I throw the socks and undies in the dryer with the towels because I'm too lazy to hang them up or because I run out of space.
One gadget that the Amish and the Japanese both use to make drying of smalls easier and more private is a little sock dryer (here's a homemade version jvanoort.blogspot.com/2012/09/sock-drying-fun-for-all-ages.html -- you can get them in a lot of different places, online or in Asian or Amish groceries, in plastic or metal or wood) You can hang a lot of items in a small area with one of these, and if you're concerned about privacy you might even find a place to hang indoors, in a basement or sunroom or on a porch. Or just hang it in the middle surrounded by everything else.
I also have a couple of wooden racks that I can hang delicates on, or use for smaller loads or when the weather is bad. www.bestdryingrack.com/ makes my favorite style - they are a very efficient use of space.

I love my clothes line. My undies, jeans and towels go in the dryer. In the winter if you things out early enough on a sunny day they are usually dry just very cold when you bring them in.

When I use my clothes line, I also hang undies on the inside lines.

Like most everyone here, I love hanging my bed linens outside. However at my age, with a serious back problem, I am now very glad that I have a dryer for everything else.

For many years I faithfully hung the laundry out and miss that now. Growing up doing the laundry was almost a two day chore. Early on Monday mornings we would sort the clothes and bedding. Then mom would pull the wringer washer from a small back porch into the kitchen. We would fill the washer with hot water and then she would put a large metal tub on a bench and fill it with warm water. The first batch of whites would be washed and then she would put each item through the wringer into the rinsing tub. Then she would run them again through the wringer and put them in a laundry basket for us to take out to hang up. Then the same thing again with all the next batches.

My mom was the worlds most fussy woman when it came to hanging out the clothes. Everything has to be hung just right, each with it's own kind. All the towels had to be hung together, them the wash cloths then the pillow cases and kitchen towels. All shirts and blouses had to be hung by their tails the fronts facing the same way. Same with undies and socks and so on. Mom was well known for her beautiful wash and she wasn't about to have anything but perfection.

When the laundry was dry we would bring it in, fold the sheets, towels and undies and then we would have to get the rest ready to iron. We had to spread each article out on the kitchen table, sprinkle it lightly with water and roll it up and put it in a basket. We didn't have wash and wear clothes or wrinkle free material nor did we have a steam iron. Sprinkling them was the only way we could get the wrinkles out. The next day everything had to be ironed. You couldn't leave the damp items in the basket very long or they would start to mildew and you would have to start all over again.

I didn't have a dryer for the first ten years after I got married. I'll never forget hanging all my babies cloth diapers out in the winter, having them freeze and bringing them back inside to hang over a rack until they were dry. For many years I hung my wash out to dry even though I had a dryer but I was more than happy to put those diapers in it in the winter. We are blessed that we now have a choice on what to do with our laundry.

Thank you for reminiscing shelby. That was interesting to read!

I love that style of clothesline! It looks like it would hold a lot of stuff and it's nice that you can fold it down out of the way. 

I may look into getting one of those umbrella-style ones; I'd prefer long straight clotheslines with poles but our backyard is so small the umbrella-style one might be more practical. 

ALSO:  I really can't understand the embarrassment about the 'undies' issue, either-- everyone wears them; why should people be embarrassed to hang them outside just because someone might see them?


ETA:  I did laundry yesterday and hung stuff on a folding rack out on our patio... it's been SO HOT here (115F yesterday) that things dried in minutes-- and when the items were dry, they felt just as hot as if I'd put them in the dryer!

My sister has always been a clothes hanger too. She is tall and as long as she doesn't dry her pants she is able to buy regular length. 

Yes, the bottle with the stopper was what mom, and later myself, used to sprinkle the clothes with. I tried to keep the ironing caught up but will admit there were a few times I put them in the fridge. You haven't lived until you have ironed a dozen little girl dresses with tiny puffed sleeves and ruffles made out of material that wrinkled and had to be ironed. Some of those landed in the fridge on occasion. All I can say is we have it pretty easy now.

My mom had a clothesline when I was a kid.

I can't imagine hanging clothes out here in NYC. It's against my building's rules, for one thing, but the principal reason is that the air is so dirty - I think the whites would be covered in black dust. I don't want to think about what it's doing to our lungs.

It's kind of funny that a thread about laundry is so interesting! I've enjoyed the stories. My Mom hung out our sheets when I was a little girl. I loved the smell and feel of them and told her I wanted her to change my bed every day.

I had a clothes line in my first house. I hung out a lot of our laundry. I don't have a place for one here. That folding one that someone linked is interesting, though.

One of the items that I wished I had found before the estate sale at my Mom's house after she passed away was the sprinkle stopper that she kept on a coke bottle to sprinkle our clothes. When I was little, she would iron every afternoon while watching Merv Griffin.