No, it is NOT silly! I love a clothesline and my arrangement is just great. I've got a door to the outside in the laundry room and right there by the door I've got one end of one of those "pulley type" clotheslines. The other end is about 40 feet away and hooked to the top of the 2 story garage. I can stand right there at my door to hang the clothes and crank them out to blow in the breeze.

Thanks! We will be sure to design in a laundry room with a door so the line can be right there. Vermont's "Building Greener" certification gives points for a mud room, so we will put the laundry there.

Anyone unfamiliar with NE weather, a mudroom is a truly wonderful thing. And absent from 99.5 percent of house plans.

measure twice,

I live in northern NY and I use my clothesline almost all year, even in the depths of winter.

Here's my set up: I dislike the look of a rigged clothes hanging off a house so I've moved my drying yard behind my barn which allowed me to choose a particularly good site in view of breeze, lack of early dewfall and sun. I live in a very rural area so privacy is not too big a deal, though I confess to having scarpered out on occasion in my jammies to snatch something I needed to wear that day off the line.

For actual clotheslines I have a combination of long lines set up with T- pole supports and those revolving umbrella-style (or Aussie-style) things. Each has it's advantages. Since I do a bit more than thirty loads per week I have a lot of line length, which is critical for successful drying in the cold, short days of January. I have one pair of T-poles (with six lines) running north and south and a double section (three poles with six lines) running east and west. In the winter that south facing line is critical, but as a rule my wind is from the southwest. These two runs of straight lines are at right angles to each other on the west forming a little courtyard with two umbrella things within the angle. The whole area is about 40 by 30 feet. I keep a bench and a folding table out there during the warm weather.

The surface of the yard is turf and stays nice and clean for the occasional dropped item even in mud season.

To support the poles (and I recommend the more expensive ones that can be found on the web over the cheaper hardware store ones) and the center stakes of the umbrella dryers I have pounded in metal stakes which fit inside the uprights. Over the vertical posts I have installed part of my collection of old stone millstones. I live in an area where they were used extensively in the 19th century so they can be found in barns - in fact they were sometimes used here as foundations in cheap, somewhat transitory farm buildings. I realize that in some areas they cost a bomb, but perhaps not where you live. Mine are generally about 16" thick and about 2 or 3 feet in diameter. They do a terrific job of stabilizing the vertical posts while permitting me (if I ever needed or wanted to) disassemble and move the whole yard, whereas sinking them into buried concrete blobs would not. You could cast lookalikes for yourself, and treat them to so they'd grow lovely lichens like mine have done.

For clotheslines I preferred the plastic coated wire as it seems to last the best. You can buy line tensioners but I find it pretty easy to adjust them manually and the do expand and contract noticeably with the changes in temps and with prolonged use on were breezy days. Diamond makes the best wooden clothespins, IMO, espcially the kind with two bars on the tips.

Since I dry in all seaons and wash nearly everyday I find that I almost always have laundry drying. In the winter I use special ice-fisherman's gloves to keep my pinkies warm. I often leave my stuff hanging out overnight (I usually do a last load or two in the evening and except in extraordinarliy frigid weather it's dry by mid-morning.)

I don't find it inconvenient to carry the laundry out to the line; in fact I kind of look forward to it as it gets me out of the house; it gives me a chance to gauge the day. I have often seem (or heard) unusual birds while I am quietly working on the laundry. In the early winter, just at dusk I see the (rare for my area) short-ear owls coursing on my meadow. Late evening hanging-outs in the spring give me the buzzy peeent of woodcocks calling. I wouldn't be truthful however, if I didn't report that this winter while I was nursing a torn rotator cuff I did resort to pulling the laundry on a little wagon because carrying wide laundry baskets was out. Today was the first day in nearly six months that I was able to carry them instead of pulling. Using the wagon my old-age plan, but trotting out to hang my clothes 450 feet from my house is what will ward off senior-itis, at least I hope so. (At close to 60, it's not that far away!)

But the best part of line drying is the sensual quality of air-dried clothes. Nothing beats it!

Molly~

We moved into a new home a year ago. When we had additional concrete work done along with the landscaping, we designed a courtyard just specifically for the umbrella clothes line, in the side yard. It's surrounded by a 6-foot privacy fence, so no one has to guess at the size of my "giant underpants" (a Pee Wee Herman-ism).

The concrete patio and sidewalk, just outside of the door going out of the garage (which is close to the laundry room), has the clothes line "planted" right to the edge of the patio. I never have to go through wet grass to hang out clothes. We don't have to dodge the clothesline when mowing. It's situated so that it gets plenty of breeze. There are river rock between the sidewalk going to the deck and the patio, so if you do have to get off the patio, you're on river rocks.

I have a rustic bench, close by, that holds the clothes basket at a perfect height.

I can also remove the clothes line and replace it with a real umbrella for shade and for more seating/serving area just around the corner from the deck.

We've done this same process for the clothes line at 3 homes in 28 years, and I love it!

-Grainlady

I have a second floor sunroom with open space underneath. Door to laundry room in walkout basement is right down there.

I've used a chain instead of line under there so things can be put on hangers (inside)and slide hangers through the chain loops. Works great for heavy sweatshirts or anything that IMO would keep the dryer running too long. Plus things dry wrinkle free and wind or rain aren't a problem. Sandy

Does anyone know where you can buy an umbrella clothesline?

Thanks,
Gabrielle

I just got a simple, yet functional umbrella-style clothes line from Home Depot for about $30.

This has me thinking. Anybody use a line outside a window? I have casements in my laundry room right by the washer and could run pieces outside easily through the open window on hangers. Sheets and larger items would still have to go the long way around, but....