Before we all had washer/dryer combinations, we had outdoor clotheslines, both straight and rotating. We used both straight and spring clothespins. (Mommy...what's a clothespin?") Hal
I still have clothes pins; I use them for all kinds of things. Mostly as "chip clips" for open bags of stuff in the kitchen. Did you know there are several states with the "Right to Dry" laws because so many people want to use a clothes line but their HOA or local community prohibits it?
Up until a few years ago, we had a clothesline. We didn't use it much but there are some things that shouldn't be dried in a dryer.
My mother used a clothesline, even in the dead of winter. I was fascinated by the frozen clothes that she'd bring in then, including pants that could literally stand by themselves...
When I moved into the first house I bought in the late 70s there was a washing machine in the kitchen and a clothesline out back. The prior homeowners had 3 kids. Clothes were hung on the line in the summer, and they went to a neighbor's house and used their dryer in the winter. I was in the place for a good 10 years before I converted a bedroom to a utility room with washer & dryer. Before then I used the clothesline in the summer, and put a drying rack over the old floor furnace in the winter (deriving the benefit of putting humidity in the house.) I would dry shirts and trousers by using plastic hangers and putting them up in the doorways around the floor furnace. I've thought of putting up a clothesline here just so I can get the nice smell of air-dryed bed linens.
Clothes dried on a clothes line have a great smell when brought in, but hanging outdoors is impractical sometimes. They won't dry in the rain when you really need to do laundry. Then there are birds using your wash for target practice. Just thought of this: Did the word "laundry" come from "lawn" and "dry"?
Local zoning laws have widely adopted restrictions against outdoors clotheslines, based mostly on the up-beat desires of the affluent residents to maintain "environmental purity".....(as they live on in houses spaced 5 feet apart, as though designed for kennels.) Frank
That's something that I've not figured out yet. Why do you spend any amount of shekels and buy a house where you can spit into the house next door?
#1: Location #2: Location #3: Location I lived in Vienna VA for over 45 years, and owned a home there for over 30. It was voted something like "The Best Town To Live In" in the entire US for many consecutive years. Having grown up there, that accolade always cracked me up...way more pretentious than deserved. But it became one of "The Places" to live because the experts said so. I bought a house I used to delivery papers to when I was a kid...a small 600 sq ft post-WW2 bungalow on a 1/3 acre lot. The entire neighborhood used to be houses just like mine, and over time were torn down and replaced with McMansions. The price of land was insane. Mine was the last little home there. I sold my place for effectively $1.5 million an acre, and that was with a house they paid to remove so the new house could be built!!! Had my lot been configured differently (more road frontage), it would have commanded more because they would have crammed 2 homes on it. Had it been 1 block up the road in a different school district, it would have commanded even more!!! People cannot afford larger lots. The value of a single house cannot support the value of the land, and developers are gonna maximize the value of every square foot by squeezing on as many homes as they possibly can. Governments are on board because more houses=more tax revenue. People buy in these locations primarily so they do not have insane work commutes, not so their kids can play ball in the back yard. Heck, even the ball fields I played on when I was a kid were turned into something you'd see in the minor leagues. Regular old children could not have a pickup game there...they'd ruin the dirt. But I digress... The other facet is that people in those areas do not want to mess with yard work. You don't need a lawn mower, you only need a weed eater...or the phone number of the local landscaper.
I worked for a major petrochemical company for 30 years; there was a facility in Fairfax (that has been shuttered.) Everyone cringed when they'd get transferred to Fairfax because housing is so affordable in Houston but terrifying in that area of VA. I have a friend who is a firefighter/EMS in Vienna.
Good evening to all- this is a very interesting discussion- thank you for starting it. We have and use a clothesline that I built some years back. In fact, I took photos of the building process and sold the article to a "moving to the country from the city" magazine. Our clothesline gets a lot of use drying blankets, towels, rugs and other heavy articles. And yes, the occasional bird spot does show up, but they mostly wipe right off when dry. I would hate to live anyplace where a HOA could control what I could and couldn't do on my own property. if I want to park my boat or trailer in the front yard, I will do just that. I guess I'm not suited to live around folks- at least, not around folks who try to impose their ideas on me. good day to all- Ed