apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I started doing this in college and never stopped. There's something about hanging laundry on the line. In addition to the outdoor clothes line, I sometimes hang clothes on hangers in the shower, from the shower curtain rod. It takes them a bit longer to dry, but is a good alternative for when it is cold, or raining, out.

Sorry, I have to disagree. To me, this screams "low rent district". Most places have strict rules against this sort of thing (for good reason, in my opinion).

So do I. I find that line-dried clothes are also easier to iron - a chore I'd rather skip.

Nice post. I was taken with the phrase, "Easily charmed... "!

I want to do this, my condo has codes against it, I might try and get permission anyway.

When I was a kid it was a big deal for my mom to hang my sheets out on the line because they got a lovely out-door scent. I always air-dry my clothes to keep them in shape and to save quarters, but I haven't air-dried my sheets in years because apartments I've lived in have been funny about putting stuff outside, but I think I might break the rules this week out of nostalgia. I also don't think there's anything low rent district about hanging things outside to dry. People used to do it all the time, and the only reason it's become associated with lower incomes is because those folks can't afford the dryer (or quarters). I think it's rather presumptuous of an apartment complex to require people to dry things inside; some people might need to save those quarters (I did in graduate school), and they have every right to air-dry things outside. I too think it looks charming, and good for the environment and wallet, too.

In the winter, I always dry my clothes on a rack next to the radiator. It's faster than using the dryers, too.

Sally - complexes where this is allowed always look like ghettos.

Josie - don't p*ss off your neighbors, it's not worth it. As a condo owner myself I would raise holy hell with the HOA if someone started doing that where I live.

My 85 year old aunt has never owned a dryer even though she worked for the gas company. All of her clothes are dried on lines in the basement. When she was younger she dried everything outside in the warm weather. Fortunately, her basement is both heated and air conditioned.

Her cleaning lady hangs them on Friday and I get to them on Saturday. The only drawback that I see, well feel really, is that it makes bath towels quite rough. A benefit for bed linens and clothing is less ironing.

I used to do this as an undergrad that couldn't afford a dryer but was given a free washing machine that only worked for large loads. Important tip: dry your clothes INSIDE OUT otherwise the color fades rather quickly!

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but line drying my clothes just makes the shoulders and necks all wonky and misshapen.

wow, where did this boomer guy come from, and is he always so positive?

my only concern with drying clothes on the line is that, well, we live in the city, so how much of that fresh outdoor scent do you really get?
also, is anyone worried about fading? the clothes in the picture look pretty bright and made out of cotton...

if you put your clothesline in the shade your colors won't fade. I have an enclosed back porch where I string up a line during the warm months when I can have the windows open. No fading!

Parallel - Are you hanging knits on hangers? I always fold them over the line, which usually keeps things in shape. Alternately, you can dry the knits flat. If you don't have a drying rack big enough for this (they make a really nice one at Ikea), you can lay them out on towels on a table or the floor. Blouses and such will usually do all right on a hanger.

Since this is a design centric website I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the aesthetic effects of hanging laundry outside of a multi-unit building. Many buildings are designed by big name architects or are historical buildings intended to be appreciated from the outside as well as the inside. Someone's pink underpants or yellow sheets flailing from a line on a balcony may disrupt the overall appearance of the building.

I think it depends on the type of place one lives in. If it has a little yard a clothes line seems more appropriate. I do live next to a housing project and there are clothes lines there with all kinds of clothes hanging from them. I'm not surprised by this. If someone were hanging clothes from my building I would be surprised by this and would not like it because there are hook-ups for washers and dryers, gas or electric. The new electric dryers are very efficient. One's efforts to conserve energy might be better directed by using energy efficient appliances, efficient lightbulbs and higher efficiency vehicles.

Parallelfirst,
I find hanging the clothes upside-down keeps things from getting too misshapen, though hanging any heavy knitwear from a line can cause distortion.

Any such name,
The fresh outdoor scent somehow cut through the pollution and smog of the city....it's some sort of alchemy. No fabric softener can duplicate it.

I also definitely second the tips for avoiding colour-fading: shade if possible, inside-out if not. And for the complexes and cities that forbid clothes-lines....bah humbug! Time to get back to the future.

can you say Al Gore?...
I mean has anyone noticed the HUGE rise in all Energy costs- excluding good ol' Solar Energy?
Gasoline at close to $4.00
ComEd announcing 25% rate increases!
Natural gas prices near all time record Highs!
All of the Utility companies have people brainwashed.
Or - someones not thinking...why, in the world would you let aesthetic Personal judgements about "HOW" clothes look - over ride the Environmental/Economical/Free alternative!

Long live the Urban clothesline!! (as well as the Suburban & Rural as well!)

Now- if they only can design a way to add "Bounce" to a clothesline (k i d d i n g !!!!)....

I don't mind hanging out things to dry, my only problem is that the dryer seems to get rid of the pet hair that is always attatched to my clothes (I have 4 hairy pets). I don't want to always be using tape, and the 'brushes' never seem to work.

Any suggestions?

Geeka -- I've heard of people tossing their clothes into the dryer for 5 minutes or so, and then pulling them out and hanging them on a clothesline. I wonder if that might do the trick? You'd still be saving a lot of energy ...

I haven't hung my clothes outside because we're on the ground floor and I'm a little concerned about losing things. I do try to dry as much as possible on drying racks inside, though. In the winter when the air is dry the clothes dry in less than a day. It's much better for my clothes and allows me to machine wash things that I might otherwise have to dry clean (sweaters, for instance).

I don't see why clothes lines couldn't be incorporated into a design to be decorative... My understanding was that form should follow function, not the other way around.

Well, here in Brazil everyone dry clothes like this...It´s super common, and no matter if you live in a good neighborhood or not...
Even those who has a dryer clothes machine do this. We just use our dryer when it´s raining or that thin rain outside.

I hardly notice anyone hanging out undies from the cloths lines in my neighborhood. Mostly, they just hang out tops/shorts/pants/sheets. I just don't get the hangup about the aesthetic, laundry can add color to a balcony or porch the same way photo's clipped on a line add interest to a wall. In any event, mine usually dry within a few hours anyway.

It sickens me to know there are people who think line drying is a symbol of low class and that it isen't allowed in certain areas. Just because it is cost effective, as listed above there are several reasons to partake line drying clothing.

Great post!

You do see this a lot in other parts of the world. I especially remember it in Venice; I thought it was practical and picturesque, not low-class. And apparently so did a lot of other people. Just a few examples:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arno-4m/28221361/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pichote/542735638/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/owilybug/422526345/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chelseabobelsea/86593616/

We always hung out clothes out to dry when I was growing up, just like all of our other neighbors. You rarely saw a yard without a clothesline in our town. Now, living in the city and trying to be eco-concious, I hang my clothes out as much as possible. I live in a pretty diverse neighborhood and no one seems to have a problem with it. I think it's a really easy way to be green.

Oh, and I grew up in a pretty nice middle class burb, Boomer- not "the ghetto". What a classist thing to say. Hanging out your laundry is not "low class", its merely practical.

Geeka - StephK is right - that's what I do with most of my clothes. 5 mintues in the dryer, then hung on hangers (most shirts, pants and shorts) or over a rack (undies and things that will get 'lumpy shoulders or will stretch). In the warmer weather I move everything outside, in cooler weather it's all inside. It really does help your clothes last longer - I have some that are 6 or 7 years old that are still in great shape. I'm lucky that I do have a small backyard area where I can hang my clothes in privacy.

One of my fondest sensory memoires from childhood is going to bed with sheets fresh from the clothesline - we lived in (what was then) a small, central CA coastal town just a few blocks from the beach so my sheets and pillowcases had both a grassy (from the lawn!) and ocean breeze smell. Heavenly!!

By the way, for those who prefer that the towels not be so stiff, a few minutes in the dryer after they're dry will soften them up nicely. Ditto for sheets.

I hang dry not only to save quarters and energy but to prevent my jeans and slim-fitting Ts from shrinking too much.

For a lot of my cotton sweaters and tops I will put them in the dryer for 10 minutes to get some of the fluff effect to lose the wrinkling from the spin cycle and then hang them to dry completely.

i'd love to do this, but my wife is super sensitive to scents and can't stand "street" smell. she even complains when i come back from walking the dog.

as for the aesthetic, let's be realistic, most buildings in this city have little architectural personality and if they were gone, most wouldn't miss them. what's so beautiful here is the environment of pattern and culture within the pedestrian experience. adding a human scale level of cultural texture would only but help the facade. after all, architectural renderings always include social gatherings and everyday happenings, not dry and boring buildings that look empty.

Jeri Dansky,
Thanks for sharing the photos. The last one looks especially charming and brought back memories.

Erika - that's exactly what we do in Britain and it works fine. Even [gasp!!!] in places that are wealthy. No problems with fading, "street smells" or "low rent area" aesthetics here...

While the fact that outdoor clotheslines aren't allowed in my town wouldn't stop me from having one, the fact that I'm allergic to so many green things does. Hence, the large indoor drying rack. For every three loads of laundry I do, only about 1 load full goes in the dryer.

Not surprised to see clothes hanging from a line in a housing project not because these are low class people but because there aren't washers and dryers. Just like when it is hot outside most of the people in the project are outside to stay cool because there aren't air conditioners. I haven't come across any green alternatives to air conditioning yet.

I remember growing up in the country and burying my face in a pile of line dried sheets to take in the fresh scent. If you can hang your clothes out to dry, go for it. It's interesting to me how living in a city, especially Chicago, is a constant battle for any eco-conscious individual. There are certain things we believe in but cannot do because the "city" won't allow it. Or certain things we have to do because we don't have a choice (ride the smog bus). "Green" buildings are popping up all over this city and reading about what makes them green is laughable. It seems like it's just another marketing attempt to sell property in a saturated market. Bamboo floors and low voc paint do not a green apartment make. An outdoor terrace with a designated cable line for hanging clothes would be a step in the right direction. Or a large cistern for watering the foliage that the city will require to be planted by the developer. Or plugs in the parking garage to charge hybrid vehicles, or separate waste containers for trash, organic compostibles and recyclables...

Hmm, this thread is very interesting. I grow up in Eastern Europe and we dried clothes in fresh air ALWAYS. The way I see it, (my personal opinion) is that drying clothes out in the air is a personal decision, and there is no low class about that. That is the most judgemental argument I have heard. I believe everyone has the right to make decisions about how to eat, sleep, make sex, and dry their clothes. People that feel that hanging clothes outside should still use the drier. Free people: continue drying in the air, in balconies etc. I used to feel that clotheslines ruin the aesthetics of a architecturally nice building, but take the Gaudi buidings in Spain. You never see clothes in the outside balconies, bcs the buildings have inner courts, that are designed for a lively social life, the lives of real people, that eat, s...t, make dirty clothes and wash them... So sometimes the fact that a building does not have a space for these activities, including the drying of clothes should an individual choose to do so, that is the shortsight of the architect or the lack of demand by the public. In my country, there were older and better built buildings that had apartments with one balcony open completely to the world, and another balcony built with holed bricks, so air could dry the clothes easily, the washer and drier where there and the clothes line, not to ruin the easthetic of the building. The balconies inside the courts did not have that restriction, bcs they could dry things freely if they chose too. So as everything else in life, it is a choice. If you feel you are a better, high class bcs we do not see your undees while drying, go ahead. Feel superior. But do not judge me, and others who chuse to dry out in the air.

If one doesn't necessarily want to display one's wet clothes for everyone to see, you can always hang them at waist level on the balcony, which should keep them out of the view of the neighbors, but still out in the draft to have them dry out properly. Also, while drying outside has a number of advantages, if you live in an area where the air is not of the cleanest variety, as, say, in the middle of the city on a busy street, drying clothes outside will allow them to collect street dust and you'll be wearing some soon and heavy metals on you.

My childhood home had a backyard with permanent poles for handing clothelines and drying clothes. I think we just dried sheets, blankets, and rugs but its a nice memory of a cute bungalow in Cleveland.

"It sickens me to know there are people who think line drying is a symbol of low class and that it isen't allowed in certain areas." Totally agree! It's a lovely old tradition, and doing it makes me feel a link with the past. It's in fact my favorite household chore.

I have considered this but living in a windy (sometimes up to 60 mph winds, how do clothespins stay on?) high desert environment, while everything would dry really fast, I feel like everything would blow around and end up dusty and full of sagebrush pollen. Does anyone find this aggravates their allergies? We have a small folding drying rack indoors that I am using more and more often but it doesn't help with the big stuff.

Hey AT- Do you have a Top 10 Clothesline/Drying Rack list already? I remember a post about a cool pulley-system-drying-rack-above-the-door-thing a while back...
I just spotted this indoor mountable line from Tiny Living on E. 7th Street and was wondering if it is any good for over the bathtub: http://www.tinyliving.com/store/product/2020/rollout-drying-rack/

From Project Laundry List:

"Are you tired of not being able to hang out your clothes? Are you or your neighbors prohibited from using the clothesline? Would you like to save money and energy by using a "solar dryer"?

* Encourage your state legislators to introduce a Right to Dry bill or solar rights legislation, like Florida and Utah.

* Register your community if your are prohibited from hanging your clothes.

* Contact us for more information or if you live in a community affected by these rules and covenants.

* See a list of communities that ban the clothesline.

* Current Right to Dry legislation: North Carolina Senate Bill 670 sponsored by Sen. Janet Cowell; Vermont S. 0074, sponsored by Sen. Dick McCormack; and Bill No. 185 in Canada, sponsored by MLA Howard Epstein of Nova Scotia. See also, Vancouver's EcoDensity plans.

http://www.laundrylist.org/index2.htm