Old-fashioned clothesline drying...

jujube said:
I grew up next to the railroad tracks. My mother would hang all the clothes out on the line and then we'd hear a coal-burning locomotive coming. "GET THE CLOTHES OFF THE LINE!" she'd yell and we'd all have to drop everything and start grabbing wet clothes before the "smuts" fell on them and necessitated rewashing.

I have a dryer. I'm a happy camper.
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Oh my word... now THAT would have put me in a rubber-room! LOL!
 

I only use the dryer for some things - towels, briefs, socks. Clothes wear out more from tumbling than from wearing.
In the summer, I hang pants & shirts outside. When it's cold, I hang them to dry inside.
 
jujube said:
I grew up next to the railroad tracks. My mother would hang all the clothes out on the line and then we'd hear a coal-burning locomotive coming. "GET THE CLOTHES OFF THE LINE!" she'd yell and we'd all have to drop everything and start grabbing wet clothes before the "smuts" fell on them and necessitated rewashing.

I have a dryer. I'm a happy camper.
Click to expand...
For a few years when I was a child we lived in a red sandstone tenement flat ( apartment).. there was 8 flats on 4 floors. There was one rear garden shared among all which was called a drying green, and where everyone had to take turns to dry their clothes. Now there's only 7 days in the week but 8 flats with families in except one where it was an old lady on her own... ( she dried her clothing indoors )
We had a lot in our family so every Monday would be our family wash day.. if it rained on Monday and we couldn't get it down to the drying green we'd have to hang it on a wooden pulley in the kitchen to dry, and it could take days..and equally if it was a winters day, our washing would freeze to the line, and we'd bring it all the way up 4 flights of stairs rock hard and ice cold..

God help you if you hung washing out on the shared drying green on someone elses' day..you'd find it lying on the ground...or conversely if you needed something washed and dried desperately on someone else's day they might let you share one of the washing lines with them if they didn't have too much to go out...

This is similar to the shared drying green.


d31a9ce58c5caba41f6b737f40d432b8273b8da5.jpg


..but on wet days, and in the west of Scotland there was many.... we had to hang the washing for a large family on this pulley in the kitchen
-EjF8UjJxe1vIvQNwrC9nJ1_XnuyoOCFzSOjVEWEJojfjkkni4S7vdOUzohXtERyY5-kfhnL01bzNAKHbq6g_O-nHb7OOtx5iN77hHQpFtWkHvfv3YIWPiG4GvGB5FeNHte0FhiTCjxntps
 
I'm in a condo, so no outdoor drying option. But I did it for enough years early in my marriage that I don't have any starry-eyed nostalgia for those days. (Two kids in diapers for part of that time!) By the time kid #3 came along, thank God we were finally able to afford a dryer!
 
Have the pulley type and hang them outside in nice weather. Not sheets though, too hard to hang. Bird droppings; maybe once in many, many years and I do have birds in the backyard. The worst I can expect is someone left a kleenex in their pocket! My hubby has allergies and hanging clothes outside doesn't seem to make a difference.
 
win231 said:
I only use the dryer for some things - towels, briefs, socks. Clothes wear out more from tumbling than from wearing.
In the summer, I hang pants & shirts outside. When it's cold, I hang them to dry inside.
Click to expand...
That's a fact. I remember having a conversation with a neighbour as to how electric tumble dryers wear clothes out faster, and until I mentioned all the fluff left in the lint-filter after each drying, it never dawned on her that all that fluff was actually fibers off her clothes and washables and things.
 
Nothing smells better than drying outside. This is a little complaint, spent 28 years on the farm, and waited all those years for a line to be put up, hopes for that failed, had lines downstairs, hung stuff down there, only used a dryer for towels and underwear, or if i was in a hurry for something. When i moved to my house in town, used drying stands, and my railing on the back deck for big stuff, smells so nice, winter, stands are downstairs for drying, still only use the dryer for towels and underwear. My opinion of dryers is that things fade very fast in the dryer. I have bedding that are over 12 years old, no sign of fading, many pieces of clothing still look brand new.
 
hollydolly said:
For a few years when I was a child we lived in a red sandstone tenement flat ( apartment).. there was 8 flats on 4 floors. There was one rear garden shared among all which was called a drying green, and where everyone had to take turns to dry their clothes. Now there's only 7 days in the week but 8 flats with families in except one where it was an old lady on her own... ( she dried her clothing indoors )
We had a lot in our family so every Monday would be our family wash day.. if it rained on Monday and we couldn't get it down to the drying green we'd have to hang it on a wooden pulley in the kitchen to dry, and it could take days..and equally if it was a winters day, our washing would freeze to the line, and we'd bring it all the way up 4 flights of stairs rock hard and ice cold..

God help you if you hung washing out on the shared drying green on someone elses' day..you'd find it lying on the ground...or conversely if you needed something washed and dried desperately on someone else's day they might let you share one of the washing lines with them if they didn't have too much to go out...

This is similar to the shared drying green.


d31a9ce58c5caba41f6b737f40d432b8273b8da5.jpg


..but on wet days, and in the west of Scotland there was many.... we had to hang the washing for a large family on this pulley in the kitchen
-EjF8UjJxe1vIvQNwrC9nJ1_XnuyoOCFzSOjVEWEJojfjkkni4S7vdOUzohXtERyY5-kfhnL01bzNAKHbq6g_O-nHb7OOtx5iN77hHQpFtWkHvfv3YIWPiG4GvGB5FeNHte0FhiTCjxntps
Click to expand...
Love your story so much, Holly!

I've heard stories before of washing actually cracking, even breaking, because it was so frozen stiff! I am so glad I was never subjected to line-sharing or having to endure hanging washing out in the dead of winter.

Edited to add, love the picture! :)
 
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Sunny said:
I'm in a condo, so no outdoor drying option. But I did it for enough years early in my marriage that I don't have any starry-eyed nostalgia for those days. (Two kids in diapers for part of that time!) By the time kid #3 came along, thank God we were finally able to afford a dryer!
Click to expand...
Boy, do I remember those days! I did the diapers on the line, too! If diapers were left on the line for too long and they became too dry, they were stiff and scratchy, so what I took to doing was pulling the diapers down when still slightly damp, then finishing them off in the electric tumble dryer for a few minutes. Talk about buttery-soft diapers!
 
Lashann said:
I too live in a condo now and must say I envy those who are still able to dry their clothes outside. I've always liked the nice fresh outdoor scent that seems to linger on the clothes for awhile when brought inside.
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Oh, me, too, and just like ironing, I just live for all things old-fashioned. The upstairs of our house smells so fresh after I finish a basket of pressing! Just love that smell!
 
CarolfromTX said:
I do, weather permitting. I hang the shirts (on regular clothes hangers) on hooks in the wooden beams of our covered patio. I have both a drying rack and a clothes line. Everything always smells so fresh after it's been hung up outside.
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Here, too, weather permitting. By April (for sure), sometimes by March (past years), I already hanging washing, and depending on what sort of fall weather we have, I can typically line-dry right through until early October, and remember there being years when I was still line-drying into November, though the window of opportunity for drying time and sunshine time is limited by then.
 

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