Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Let It All Hang Out

Welcome to The Cherry On Top.  We are back with yet another instalment in the Dirty Laundry Series.  This time were airing it out.  It's my goal to have you leaving here with your mind made up that you are going to start hanging out your laundry or giving yourself a pat on the back for doing it all ready.

There are so many advantages to hanging out your laundry.  We'll touch on those and come up with alternatives for some of the not so advantageous reasons, too.  Make sure you read all the way through in case you haven't thought of some of these wonderful ideas.


As you may have read in a past edition, drying in the machine is more costly to your pocket and to your clothes.  If you love your clothes, you'll hang them to dry.  Any appliance that must generate heat is going to cost ya.  In my research I found that dryers are the cause for 4% of house fires.  I had no idea! If you have good weather, like now it's boiling in Belgium and my wash is drying before I can get it all hung! Line drying is totally environmentally friendly.  Every little step we can do to help, should be done.

Did you also know that the sun is awesome for your whites and can even remove stains?  How awesome is that?!  If you have a touch of wind or a breeze, you'll eliminate some serious ironing, too.  How many times have you forgotten your dryer and the clothes were just a wrinkled mess?  If you forget your clothes on the line, they'll be fine.  


Check out this image, above.  I hang my clothes according to whom they belong.  Each member has their own line.  This makes it so easy when it comes to putting your laundry away.  All of the like clothes are already together.  I love that time saver.  I can have 4 or 5 loads of wash put away in under 10 minutes, easy.  When it's organised, the kids don't mind putting it away either.


-Consider where you put your pins when hanging your wash out.  You don't want them to make marks.
-Roll up your paired up socks before you take them down.  They'll never get lost that way.
-Put hangers in the tops that don't need ironing or anything that you can just put right in the closet.
-Keep a rolling rack handy and go directly from the line to the rack.  If you hang your items efficiently, getting them to the drawers or the closet will go so much faster.


You can also use a rolling rack to dry your clothes, if you haven't got a line.  One need not a lot of space to hang clothes.  My yard is tiny.  I have one wooden poll and we brought the lines over and attached them to the wall of the house, like you see pictured above.


Another huge plus to hanging out your clothes is the perfectly folded fitted sheet!  Look how crisp that baby is!  Hehehe...Make sure your corners are positioned nicely on the inside. Your sheet will dry faster this way if yu keep it all going the same way.  Fold your sheet in half, then in half again and once more if you like.  Take it off the line and fold in have two more times and your sheet is perfect.


Get one of these awesome baskets to make hanging your wash a breeze.  Mine is so broken, but I keep using it.  You don't have to keep bending over to get your wash.  The legs fold in when your finished so it's easy to manoeuvre it around the house.


I have got one heck of a tan already just from hanging out my wash.  It gets me outside with my girls (chicken) and all of that nature.  It's truly therapeutic and I make it a point to take my time and enjoy the process.  Of course hanging out the wash is time consuming, but when it's something you enjoy and there are so many advantages to doing it, that's just fine.

Items that are best for on the line are: sheets, towels, heavy items, linens, delicates, wool, leather, swim wear, robes, shoes expensive bras, hats, toys, comforters, curtains, pillows and cushions.  Seriously consider hanging all of these items all of the time.

It was mentioned that hanging your clothes is bad for allergies.  I've never heard that so I went digging and I did indeed find that hanging your clothes inside contributes to mould, mites, humidity and a few other less positive aspects.  The key is ventilation.  Hang your clothes in the most ventilated area you have.  Outside is always best.  Read more about that here.  Although I have specific days for washing, I keep the weather in mind and wash when it's the nicest.

Consider hybrid drying when the weather isn't great.  I often throw all of the little things in the dryer and hang the large, heavy items.  This way the dryer is done faster and just a couple of pieces are left hanging.

Space should never be an excuse for hanging your laundry.  There are so many ways to get around this.  Design a line that can be taken down if you think it's an eye sore or it gets in the way of some other activity.  Hooks and other systems are out there.

There are retractable lines that take up very little space and nearly hide inside themselves when not being used.  Here are a couple of examples.  The first one is my favourite.  It's totally concealed when not in use.  The others are also awesome, space saving ideas.








Seriously, all of these options show you how easy it can be no matter how small a space you have.

When asking friends, fans and family what they hated most about laundry, they unanimously answered, putting it away.  We'll be back to cover just that next time.

Other instalments from this series that you missed are:

Dirty Laundry Do's and Don'ts
The Ideal Laundry Area
Stain Removing And Pre Wash
The Machines
Cycles
The Dirty On Detergents
Seriously, You Need To Ditch The Softeners

You might also like some fun, free printables to spruce up your laundry area.



And today I'm adding another one.  I have all of the goodies I need to turn this lovely image into a canvas master piece with real clothes pins and a handy place to clip missing socks.  I'll hook you up to the tutorial for that whenever my hubby gets the printout I need.  Hehehe...


We are still not finished with our laundry series.  We'd like to cover a few more topics such as specialty washing, ironing, dry cleaning, fabrics and clothes in general, where to buy quality clothes and recycled clothes ideas, too.  We hope you join us for those and thanks for making The Cherry a part of your day.

Happy laundering!









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