Do You Think That Hanging Laundry Outside Looks Bad?

[Tala]

Quote:
Just do smaller loads and hang them inside!

If you can tolerate the look of it, get an adjustable shower curtain rod (spring loaded) sized for a stall shower and put it in your hallway above the tallest heads. You can hang stuff there to dry, especially at night when it won't be in the way of walking, and when nothing is on the curtain rod you won't even notice that it's up there.

I also have a homeade curtain, which is a flat sheet hung over my front double-window. I bought a thin closet rod to use instead of a curtain rod. I bought curtain rod rings with clips to hold up the sheet. I put the curtain rod up in the studs with eye screws. The result? Not only does my cheapie curtain slide easily open and closed, but I can hang laundry on the sturdy rod too! If I turn the ceiling fan on in the living room I can dry even jeans and heavier stuff there!
Here's a visual:

 

[Rosalind]

I live in a part of the country where houses are often right up tight against each other, and there's a lot of industrial stuff--in many places, it smells bad enough that you wouldn't want to hang out laundry. The town I live in has a lot of farm conservation land and takes an extremely hard line on developers moving in and building McMansions. In the town council's eyes, if you can afford 1. a large enough lot to put a clothesline + garden in the backyard 2. to keep air fresh enough from restricted commercial development (i.e. we aren't so desperate for tax $$ that we let every Tom, Dick and Harry build a chemical cesspool next door to residential neighborhoods) to hang your clothes up to dry, then more power to you.

Yes, in our area, hanging out your clothes to dry is in fact a status symbol. Not kidding. My wealthier neighbors, naturally, hire someone else to hang out the laundry, so I'm regarded as a bit of a weirdo for doing it myself. The norm here is that you have really made it into the big leagues because you no longer live in a condo/apartment and can afford to keep a large lot with fresh air in a town so safe that hanging your laundry out is not a guaranteed way to dispose of your old undies. This is not the case in many neighboring towns that are over-developed and less-well policed.