I got one of those things too Cathe! Use it indoors when it's raining. Makes it steamy but that's not always a bad thing LOL!

K x

Whatever rocks yours and Hans boat I suppose :roll: I don't have an inside airer, but I do have a wrought iron spiral staircase which is great for drying sheets you won't believe how much I can fit on it sometimes it looks like a chinese laundry :lol:

I'm gobsmacked! Absolutely gobsmacked.... Here in Australia (well, in Queensland where I live), a Hills Hoist (that is a rotary clothes line) is mandatory for every house. Most of my friends do not dry clothes in any other way but on the clothes line. I realise we live in what is called "The Sunshine State", but even in Victoria (down south), most houses have clothes lines. I do not even own a clothes dryer.

Sometimes its so hot and dry that as I finish hanging out a load of washing, I can almost begin bringing them back in again - dry!

I admit I envy the softness of towels coming out of the dryer when we are on holidays, but you cant beat the smell and freshness of wind blown dry clothes.

I still use mine, the clothes smell so good and the sheets oh my, get into a bed with sheets just washed is pure Heaven! my yuppy neighbor is not to happy with my clothes line, his problem not mine!!!

In many "covenant communities" here, you are not even allowed to HAVE a clothesline. They think it's unsightly. :roll:

I like using the indoor rack in winter, when the forced air heat makes the air so dry. Hopefully it adds some humidity.

When the sun shines, and the temps rise above 40, I use mine. When the temps rise really high, I'll wash laundry in the evening, and in the morning hang it out before the outside becomes a sauna. And when the sun sets (on the other side of the house) and shade stretches across the line, the laundry will come in.

Sheets - my favorite thing to hang on the line.

I can't use fabric softener - allergic - so things can get a little stiff, but ooooh do they smell good.

I still use a clothesliine. I love my sheets hung out. But I do not hang our clothes that we wear because you have to iron everything it takes out the permanent press. We don't mind the stiff towels either. Sure does count down on the electric bill in the summer.

k, is going to love this, B.
She watched neighbors line, for clues, as to what kind of lap quilt to make.
My dryer has been broke down, over two months, but even when it was working, I hung a lot of clothes up.
I have always hung most of my own clothes up on hangers in wash room, so they wouldn't fade. Did not want them in dryer. I do miss the dryer, when washing fabrics though.
I am not sure, once dry on a rack, if ironing them, is enought to take care of the shrinking thing. good poem, B! :D

:D

K x

ah, I see you found it, K!:D

Ya yo! You can't escape me! :mrgreen:

K x

:XD:

What a great story. I'm 56 years old and I remember helping my mother hang the clothes on the line.... if I didn't drop them, I was pretty short. LOL. Thanks for sharing and giving us memories of yesterday.

B&V Quilt Services

How did I miss this thread? When we married, we had a wringer type washing machine and no dryer. The clothesline was in the backyard of our apartment. We shared with a neighbor. For a while, they had no washer and carried clothes to the in-laws to wash. So we made a "deal." :wink: She used our washer and did our laundry also. She spoiled me completely. When I got home from work, the laundry was done -- washed, dried on the line, and folded. How good was that. When we moved into our house, I really missed this good neighbor's "services."
We did have a clotheline at our new house. DH soon tired of going around the poles with the lawnmower, so removed it. Yes, I loved the smell of the sheets and towels.

Hanging clothes out during the sugar cane grinding season was tricky. At that time, the air is filled with soot (from the burning of the cane leaves). We had to check the wind direction before hanging out the clothes. We also checked to see if anyone in the area was burning cane that day.
[And our kids think they have a hard life. :? ] lol

As far as the drying rack goes, I had one in college; then I used it when the first baby was born. After that -- for #2 and #3 -- it was the dryer.

I remember clothes lines. My mom never had a dryer. I remember my dads pants would stand on their own when freeze dried in the winter. Thanks for the memories.

Because water was such an issue when I was growing up - and when my husband was growing up - both our mothers had wringer washers (and I did too) many loads of clothes were run through the washer and two rinses before the water was dumped.

The order of washing: barely dirty whites - Sunday shirt, dish towels,
barely dirty lights -
medium dirty mediums
not very dirty darks
the filthy farm clothes - overalls - went through last
maybe grease rags and coveralls after that - but I think they were soaked in a bucket first. The coveralls were worn until they could stand by themselves.

By this time the water was so dark -

I don't remember where the really dirty whites and lights went in the line-up. They might have been saved until the next washday.

I remember Mom handwashing quite a few things. And I remember the drying racks.

Oh my, bearisgray, I had forgotten about the order of washing. I did the same thing. Our washer was downstairs in the garage. By the time it got to the DH's heavily soiled work clothes, I was so tired going up and down the stairs (usually lugging one little one on my hip and one "in the oven" I would just let that work clothes agitate forever. He had the cleanest uniforms at the shop (he was a farm equipment/automobile mechanic). :lol: Thanks for the memory.

How about freeze dried diapers???? :lol: :lol:

Oh my gosh, I remember all those. Did 'em all growing up. Remember NOT doing any chores cuz it was Sunday (rest day) Boy that brought alot of memories. Thanks for the smile punkin.. :D

Oh my , I remember that too, til dad brought home one of those wooden stand dryer deals. Then mom would turn the oven on and put that in front of it to dry.

My father-in-law did the contracting for our house which was built (1961-1962). My in-laws gave us the property the house is setting on.

The in-laws had just gotten a new house maybe five years earlier, so I think a lot of their attitude was "if it's good enough for us, it's certainly good enough for you"

Anyway - the laundry area is downstairs - had the wringer washing machine, BUT we had a water heater, could fill the machine with a hose from the faucets, had two cement tubs, could let the water out of the machine into a floor drain! This was such an improvement over what I had. This was truly living in the lap of luxury.

I also got LOTS of exercise on wash day.

Once in a while the laundry got truly out of hand and I would trek to the laundromat with a mountain of dirty clothes.

We finally got a dryer maybe sometime in the 70's. I finally got an automatic washer sometime in the early 1990s.

We have a septic system so there was a concern about overloading that. And I thought the hook-up was going to be a big deal. It wasn't.

Stairs are not a big issue for me yet. I sometimes do use the handrail to help haul myself up and sometimes I do the "old lady" way of getting up steps - go up one step- bring the other foot up - go up another step-bring the other foot up even . ..

I haven't had a clothesline up north since we got the dryer - we couldn't agree on where to put it. In Florida there's one out back in the "alley" - it's not really an alley because there's no road there, but I don't know what else to call it.

We did buy a dryer during the year our first child was born, but somehow the mentality was that it was to be used when it rained. teeheehee. We still did hang clothes out on the line when the weather was good.

Oh, you are bringing back memories. We had one to and on the winter mornings my dad was home he would hang our socks on it so we had warm socks to put on.

My mother and my sister still hang their clothes on the line. I just had that experience while I visited them in Germany. OH YEAH and I remember why ai don't like them too:

First of all, there is no way to hang wet clothes to where I don't have clothes-pin marks. it's like having dog-eared shirts.
Second - the clothes get so darn hard when they dry on the line. I could almost stand my jeans in the corner.

Thanks- I'm a spoilt CA brat and I want my clothes soft and without dog-ears. lol