May 16th, 2007 @ 9:11 pm
We’re always looking for new ways to save money and a few weeks ago Zach had the brilliant idea that we should start hanging our laundry out to dry. He’d talked about doing it a little before, but there wasn’t a great place for us to set up clothes lines in our yard. The difference this time was that he came up with a place for the lines — our back porch! Since he set them up we’ve barely dried any laundry in the dryer. I’m quite looking forward to the savings on our power bill next month. We’re also feeling very smug about doing our laundry in an environmentally friendly way. When I smell a neighbor’s dryer running I think, “Well hmmm, hmmm, hmmm — look who’s destroying the planet! At least I’m doing my part to stop the polar ice caps from melting.” Of course, I was also drying my laundry in a dryer up until 3 weeks ago, so you should roll your eyes right now, Internet.
There are a couple of down-sides to this air drying business. The first is that none of us are that into crunchy bath towels. One of life’s great pleasures is stepping out of the shower and burying your wet face in a soft, warm bath towel and for now that joy is gone for us. Does anyone of my three or four readers know how to make your air-dried towels fluffy? I’d love to hear about it.
Another problem is that we tend to buy clothes in sizes that can shrink up a bit in the dryer and still fit comfortably. No dryer means no shrinkage though, so we all have a few pieces of clothing that we’re swimming around in. On the plus side, that does make us feel waifish and thin.
daily life
Zach
said,
May 16, 2007 at 9:37 pm
You can’t see it well in the pict, but we also hang stuff up to dry on the fiberglass siding on the porch. I got a special hanger for small items that can hang from our shower curtain rod in the bathroom, which I use to dry Wyatt’s socks and gross underwear items. The entire setup including clothespins and stuff was around $14.00. I still have about 100 feet of nylon clothesline left.
daisy
said,
May 16, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Hey, speak for yourself! My underwear isn’t gross!
Butch
said,
May 18, 2007 at 8:40 am
Dry your new, shrinkable clothes in the dryer the first couple of times then air dry them after that. It doesn’t HAVE to be all or nothing.
Why does this make me think of Italy?
emily sparkle
said,
May 18, 2007 at 12:22 pm
vinegar is a good fabric softener. you might run it thru your washer and see if that softens the line dried ouchy towels…
Evan Prodromou
said,
May 26, 2007 at 5:17 am
In Olden Times, didn’t they use a big stick to beat up your laundry with? I bet that would soften up your towels a lot. You even have an ideal little towel-beater in the family.
Wendolonia » Blog Archive » Sleek, Sophisticated and Sparkling Clean
said,
June 30, 2007 at 4:01 pm
[...] we are loving it. Mostly, we’re just using the washing machine because, as you know, we are hanging our wash out on the line these days. It gets our clothes phenomenally clean and it’s so easy to do laundry that we [...]
Laundry Love | Wendolonia
said,
August 19, 2008 at 9:42 pm
[...] written about hanging laundry out to dry before but that was before I fell totally and completely in love with it, so I think the time is [...]