06 Apr Hanging Your Clothes Out To Dry
Back to Basics – Laundry Lessons
Does the picture of sheets drying in the wind on a bright sunny day evoke warm and fuzzy feelings? Well in Europe people still air dry their laundry and it is not because they haven’t discovered the electric dryer.
So why would someone actually CHOOSE to dry their laundry on a line?
Neat Freak has the best laundry care products - take a look!
It really isn’t all that much work and the benefits are pretty nice. First, the smell of fresh air permeates your laundry. Second, you are going to save money and employ living green while extending the life of your clothes and sheets and third, well…. when sheets dry on the line, they just about press themselves and all you need to do is run the iron over them.
WHAT? Iron your sheets and pillowcases? Yes. If you’ve ever climbed into freshly pressed cotton sheets after a long, hard day you will know that this is luxury to which you can easily become addicted. And guess what? It costs absolutely nothing but a little extra time.
Three steps to having perfect laundry:
Urbanclothesline.com has everything you need for every sized family. This four slat 'clothes airer' is suspended from the ceiling and is lowered with pulleys. Pull it back up while your laundry dries and it is out the way. It comes in 4 or 6 slats.
1 - Pay attention to the types of detergents and settings on your machine. As a matter of fact, we’re going to send you over to our buddy, Coreyanne Ettiene over at Housewife Bliss where she is going to tell you how to do this just so. HousewifeBliss.com – How To Do Laundry Guide.
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2 - Snap those sheets and hang them on your clotheslines. In the winter, use the pull racks shown here and in the summer look at the weather forecast to see when it would be best to schedule your laundry day.
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Choose the right iron - The Rowenta Iron and Steamer will cut your pressing time in half . Take a look at their short demonstration video here.
3 -Ironing. Sure, it sounds like a chore but if you fold your sheets properly right off the line they should look almost self pressed. For the finishing touch only iron the top 10″ – 12″ of the sheets – the part that will be showing and then fold the sheets neatly for storage. The folds will relax even further while they await their turn on the bed. Most importantly press your pillowcases and shams. Use a steam iron, light starch or spray some lavender water on to give a nice scent! Check out this Rowenta – your laundry will look properly pressed all the time!
Restoration Hardware's Laundry Carts are sturdy and awfully good looking!
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Some of our favorite laundry and linen extras!
Wanna Go To Bed – Fine antique linens, Hungarian down pillows and the European Sleep System
Rough Linen – They’re Not Your Grandmother’s Linen, or are they? – Hand made linen sheets
The Laundry List Calculator - How much does your dryer cost you?
Belvivere Luxury Linens - Read the Interview by Housewife Bliss.
Retractable Five Line Mini Dryer extends 12.25 feet providing over 67 feet of available drying space.
Remember these? The Clotheslineshop has clothes pins and all kinds of laundry lines!
For small backyards, use the good ol' umbrella model!
Peace Valley Lavender Farm - Ironing Water
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I’m a European who dries her sheets on a line in the garden and sprays them with lavender water before they are ironed! Tumble dried sheets feel ‘thin’ to me. I am lucky that my husband enjoys ironing, he will listen to comedy or sport on the radio and finds the whole business relaxing. I make lavender water every June when the flowers are in bloom and the brew lasts for most of the year.
There is nothing better than a pair of sheets dried on the line. The fresh smells of the sun and the wind! I have yet to iron them, we only have a steamer! =) This post brought back memories of when I was younger…
When we first moved to France and into our apartment in the chateau, there was a washer, but no dryer. I told my husband, Mon Dieu, I’ve got to buy one, I can’t live without a dryer! but to my great surprise I did—and loved it! Eight years later, I still hang out my clothes. And I don’t even have a clothesline outside! I’ve got a rack in my laundry room and I use that. Everything dries overnight. For sheets, I drape them over the furniture on the terrace and they dry in no time. Clothes last longer, and the dryer is a HUGE percentage of your energy bill. What’s not to like?
I am one of those crazy people who loves doing laundry. I iron bed sheets and spray them with great linen water. Blanc de Riz is my favorite scent though tough to find in the States now. The last few palces I have lived I am not allowed to hang out my sheets to dry crisp in the air, so I suffer through with light starch. I said I was crazy right?
I moved a lot, which is a great way to learn different ways of doing laundry! I loved the pulley-ed racks I call SheilaMade, urban clothes line here. I use a pragmatic little Ikea rack now, with a line for big items (though once a neighbour rang to say she had guests, could I take down my washing!)
The great eyeopener for me was folding sheets etc, and putting them on the lids of the AGA range. You could swear they were ironed. No AGA here in California, alas!
When I left the city after getting married, drying clothes outdoors became an obsession! Not only did we cut out electricity savings considerably, our clothes smelled ever so sweet. When I say savings, I speak of considerable savings, and especially if you do more than 2 loads a week. No detergent can replicate this lovely aroma though laundry detergents do try, yet having to use bad chemicals! Not good in this house with two children highly sensitive to many laundry detergents. Anyone interested, I am all for ECOs laundry detergent. Love to know if there are laundry detergents one can make. Are there any ‘recipes’?
Must add- Added benefit of drying outdoors: The sun is a natural disinfectant!
Great article! ! Hope some might find the same benefits as I have realized drying my clothes outdoors.
I love this post! My grandmother has always line dried and pressed her clothes and sheets with an iron. This is so great!
Adore this lesson….If only our back yard was sand free….I would love to hang my clothes to dry in the Arizona sunshine. Alas, I will have to stick with airing them in the laundry room.
You are singin’ my song! I grew up with sheets billowing in the breeze, my mom in her apron out at the clothesline, clothespins in her mouth, expertly arranging everything on the lines just perfectly. Winter, spring, summer, fall… it didn’t matter – there were clothes on the line.
Yup, I love laundry, but mostly I love clotheslines. Thanks for this fun blog post. And thanks for giving me another opportunity to wax nostalgic about clotheslines.
A child of the ’40′s I am your grandmother now, and have always line dried laundry where I could – in the basement in winter where the boiler heat generated dries things overnight and eight or nine months of the year in the the great outdoors. Everywhere I’ve ever lived the first item on my agenda after unpacking has been to construct a clothesline. The past 25 years it’s been a “telegraph four line” set up tucked in a pocket of sunshine behind a wing of the house on the back patio. Only once has a neighbor offered to buy me a dryer in return for NOT hanging out my linens – (I had one already – which he found unfathomable). It’s not so much a “green” thing – that’s a side benefit – the best is the zen of a fistful of clothespins, laundry wafting in the breeze and the smell of fresh air in clothing and bedsheets. Heavenly!
There is nothing quite as nice as line-dried linens and clothes. I did a similar post on it last year, but I did not have a pic/link to that AMAZING laundry cart from Restoration Hardware. We try to line dry everything whenever it is practical. Putting on a fresh t-shirt from outside is the b.e.s.t.