No Excuses! Hang Your Laundryby Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 02 Feb 2007 01:34 PM
Now as an adult with a family of my own, I hate to say that I use our clothes dryer far more often than I should. It is right there and very convenient to use. In just a few motions, clothes go from the washing machine straight to the dryer. If I am really busy or just lazy, the clothes can stay in there all night. Of course, the wrinkles will set in, but isn't that what the iron is for? Still, my past forces me to examine my rationalizations for using my dryer, when I really should hang the clothes. Too cold? Didn't my mother hang the laundry out in everything but the snow and the rain? There were days that the clothes came in so stiff with frost that the pants would stand up by themselves. The shirts, hung upside down, when taken off the line and turned right side up, had arms reaching for the sky. They looked like they were all being held at gunpoint. These frosty clothes we placed against the living room radiator until they melted in a heap. And, as a kid, I thought that was the greatest thing to watch. And on those snow and rain days, the laundry hung in the bathroom and kitchen to drip dry. My current pre-move house has a yard the size of a postage stamp. I could use the excuse that I have no space? My parents never had a yard, a basement or the luxury of any extra space to hang clothes. I could find some little corner of the yard or even half of the basement to hang the clothes, as I sometimes, but not often enough, do. And if I need more encouragement, I can always go to the Project Laundry List website, a grass roots effort to encourage people to hang up their clothes. Here are their top five reasons to hang out your clothes: 1. Clothes last longer. Related Articles: Frugal Laundry: Make Your Own "Detergent" Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments  Julie Gentry (5915) 02 Feb 2007 01:11 PMLove the smell when they're hung! When it gets above freezing, I like to hang as much as I can. Except the towels. dh thinks they're too scratchy (though I LOVE a scratchy invigorating towel).  Mary Ann Romans (26791) 02 Feb 2007 01:22 PMTo get the scratchy out, you can lightly mist the towel and throw it in the dryer (on air fluff if you have it, or just low) for about three minutes. At least that works for me! jonesx6 (1606) 02 Feb 2007 06:15 PMI love to hang out laundry especially in the spring. I find it hard to hang clothes out with a infant/toddler and homeschool. My inspiration for hanging laundry out is the Amish. Those women hang their clothes out in ALL weather. I wish I was as discplined as they are. Blessings, Laura  Sara Denomme (1063) 02 Feb 2007 07:24 PMGreat article - I really want to start hanging my clothes this spring. I know it's probably possible to hang in MI in the winter, but I'm new to it and I think I will start when it warms up LOL But since I am using cloth diapers, I would especially like to start doing this. I would add to your list #6: The sun is a natural bleaching agent! My cloth diapers are currently hanging in the garden window in my kitchen to bleach the poo stains out, and it works like a charm! Nola Redd (7081) 02 Feb 2007 10:08 PMI'd love to hang my laundry but my dh objects. He thinks it's too 'country' or whatever. But here's another good excuse for the lazy: homeowners associations. I have actually seen a couple with various rules/by-laws, whatever those things are called against hanging laundry outside. Apparently, those folks are just as snobbish as my dh! Soon, however, I will change him.... Maybe now that we've moved out of the 'city' and into the 'country'! ;) Mary Ann Romans (26791) 03 Feb 2007 03:34 PMjones, Exactly, that is how I feel by thinking back to my mom. Hanging laundry was just the way she did things. There is a lot to admire about the Amish. I always wanted an Amish pen pal for inspiration on things like this. Mary Ann Romans (26791) 03 Feb 2007 03:34 PMSara, That is a great tip about the bleaching property! Thanks Mary Ann Romans (26791) 03 Feb 2007 03:37 PMNola, Yes, there are quite a few communities where hanging laundry is outlawed. That project Laundry List site has a search. You can find out what the rules are for your area. We are moving to a home on 2 acres, and a laundry line is one of the first things I want to put up.  Andrea Hermitt (5472) 03 Feb 2007 04:11 PMMy neighborhood association and my husband would have my head... I remember hanging out clothes in the summer when I was a teen and they would dry just as fast as with any old clothes dryer!  Myra Turner (1560) 03 Feb 2007 04:16 PMWhen I was growing up, I always hated the smell of clothes hung outside. We didn't have a dryer so unless we walked to the laundrymat we didn't have a choice. I was suprised when I moved back to Mobile that some people are still hanging their laundry outside. In fact, I was walking around my neighborhood about two hours ago and someone had a ton of laundry outside! It brought back memories and then low and behold i run into your article. i also remember having to run outside and grab the laundry off the clothesline many times when the rain started without fair warning! Mary Ann Romans (26791) 03 Feb 2007 04:21 PMSee Myra, it is fate telling you to hang your laundry :) I remember running to our kitchen window to pull the laundry in. I also used those clotheslines to send little notes over to the neighbors. Mary Ann Romans (26791) 03 Feb 2007 04:23 PMAndrea, to take an idea from jones, maybe you could ask the association to declare "Amish Day?" :) ChelseaH (5) 29 May 2008 12:44 AMI'm a student at Pomona College in Claremont, California and recently spent a good amount of time looking into the various clothesline and drying rack options since Pomona is going to purchase some for student use and I wanted to get the best available racks for us. In my research, I was shocked to find that there is NO good website explaining all the different clotheslines and drying rack options, so I made my own! It's a wiki page on the Tip the Planet sustainable living wiki that ANYONE CAN EDIT. You can check it out here: http://www.tiptheplanet.com/index.php?title=Air_dry_washing I'm trying to spread the word so that the site becomes a clearing house for drying rack information, and people have to spend less time scouring the web for the best products. Have a look, share it with your friends, and by all means add your wisdom! Take care, Chelsea  thequeenofthecastle (413) 10 Feb 2009 12:44 PMAfter reading this article I started hanging my laundry a lot of days. I don't have a clothes line, but I've found I don't need one. I just stick all of my clothes on clothes hangers and hang them along our privacy fence in the back yard. The sun hits them all afternoon and the wind moves them plenty enough. Sometimes I'll have to flip something to get the other side dry, but it really works well. I didn't like how stiff the clothes felt, so after drying them I throw them in the dryer on the tumble only/air dry cycle for just a minute and they come out feeling really soft and they are SO FRESH. Thanks for the idea. Mary Ann Romans (26791) 11 Feb 2009 08:56 AMThat is really inventive! When we first moved in to this house, I was hanging clothes on our rhododendron and the trees! it worked pretty well. Thanks for sharing! I can't just see the clothes hanging on the fence, and it brings a lovely picture to mind. FrugalPhilly (25) 05 Mar 2009 11:13 PMWhen i was a little girl i hated wash day. We had a weeks worth of laundry for two aldults and three kids and a baby sister, all to be done on Saturday. I have an older brother and a younger brother. Unfortunately we had to carry water from the neighbors spring over flow pipe down in the creek. In the winter we took our sleigh down and would bull back enough water to drink, cook, wash or take a bath with. also we gathered snow to melt on the wood stove to do laundry with. We used a wringer washer indoors. We put clothes on hangers and hung them on the shower curtain rod to dry. The rest of the year water was caught off the corners of the house we strained leaves and grit out with an old curtain. We set the washer out in our front yard and Momma would run the clothes through and we kids would take turns catching them shaking them out and hanging them on the line. It would literally take all day. Eventually we got a second wringer washer we set them so when momma ran them through the first washer it would fall into the second washer to rinse and then i ran them through the second washer and the brothers took turns hanging them. This way we used the same wash water to wash several loads of laundry before changing the water. When a water change was needed. Momma would then use the water i was using to rinse as wash and we would empty the wash water out and fill it up with fresh rinse water. the last rinse water was used on the garden. Often when it rained i would get a dab of dish liquid and wash my hair under the down spout sometimes even baithing outdoors as long as it wasnt a thunderstorm. Believe it or not i kind of miss those days. I love the line dried laundry smell too, I hated the spiders and the bees that sometimes got brought in with the laundry and the clothes were very stiff if the wind didnt blow much. We eventually started going to the laundromat every saturday. The laundry got done a lot quicker but i hated going to the laundromat even more. Community Tags conservation, hanging laundry, laundry Discuss this article
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I grew up in a small apartment in New York City. My mother washed our clothes by hand or with a small washing machine and hung them out to dry on the clothesline that ran from our kitchen window across to our neighbor's kitchen window. I never really saw a dryer until I was a teenager. 
