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October 12, 2008 
this saturday morning, i headed out to the deck to hang our wet laundered clothes to dry. you may recall that last month i decided i really wanted to make an effort to sun-dry our laundry as much as possible. weather was a bit windy, but sunny nevertheless.
then the SO suddenly remembered, oh yea.. i still need to make or buy you a clothesline! oh wait, i have an idea! and he ran off.
couple of minutes later after i had already hung the clothes around the deck, i saw him setting up our new clothesline from the bedroom window. i went outside to review his work.
check it out!
what did we use? he connected old rock climbing and motorcycle equipment that he had lying around in the garage. he used to climb several years ago, and he still motorcycles.
DIY clothesline equipment:
- old purple climbing rope — ~$200* at the time
- carabineers — $10*
- various webbings — a few dollars each, so about $10* total
- moto tie-downs (ratcheting thing) — ~$5*
- big existing sturdy tree trunk
- sturdy existing fence post
*note these were the prices when the equipment was bought brand new — 5-10 years ago!
he tied one end of the ensemble to a sturdy fence post, and the other to the trunk of a strong tree. he said he used ‘figure 8′ knots to join some parts together.
the SO says that the climbing rope was of top quality, but since so old, was no longer safe to use. he had been meaning to use all of the above equipment for our new clothesline, but just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
the motorcycle tie-downs were too short to be useful, and he had long since bought longer ones for the bike.
what better use for old climbing equipment than as a laundry clothesline? certainly better than sitting around in the garage in storage bins gathering dust. such a sturdy rope, no worrying about it breaking anytime soon! $225 or so spent 5-10 years ago still put to good use.
i’m actually looking forward to checking out our upcoming pg&e bills to see how much our bill goes down from us minimizing use of the dryer. we suspect that one of our other roommates will also follow suit, although most likely not the other one. i believe that our monthly bill has been somewhere between $100-200.
in the afternoon, we went to a jo-ann fabrics superstore so that i could pick up additional yarn for upcoming crocheting projects. they were having a columbus day holiday sale. i also had a 40% off in-store coupon from my newsletter subscription with them. i used it to get a small set of plastic clothespins that weren’t on sale for really cheap — $1.80 instead of $2.99 (before tax) !
total time to find and set up equipment: 15 minutes.
actual monetary expenses spent today: $1.80 ! now that’s what i call frugal.
we used equipment from a past hobby of rock climbing and current interest of motorcycling, but you certainly don’t have to have done (or currently do) either. many other hobbies and activities have rope and other related materials that might be usable as clothesline materials: rope from boating sports, horseback riding, cables from old winches that no longer function, and much more.
how about you?
is your lifestyle and/or climate suitable for sun/wind-drying your laundry?
do you have a clothesline too?
if not, do you have plans anytime soon to start using the sun and wind to dry your clothes?
do you have any past interests from which old materials might be found for making a clothesline?
any other interesting materials you can think of for a homemade line?
