I have always had a clothesline. Whether growing up at home or since I have been on my own. There is nothing like fresh, wind-blown sheets! Growing up, my mom and my grandmother's used a clothesline. Most people either love them or hate them.
As a little girl, in the winter, Mama would be using the dryer and I would get out of the tub or the shower and she would wrap me in a warm one, and there was nothing like it! But in the summer, the towels Wouldn't feel like those soft blankets of warmth. It was like a little thin sheet of sandpaper concrete. Lol Never in a million years would I want to have that in my home I would say. To this day I can hear myself saying those words. Especially when I hear my children say them to me on a regular basis. And yes, it's more work. It takes longer to work them up than to just throw them into the dryer. But now I understand. I understand all the little things that people say about how we put mother's love into the little things we do. I hope that one day my children will want to have a clothesline in their yards.
I wanted it to be a little different than most clotheslines, since I have 4 children I have to do a lot of laundry. I looked around on Pinterest and found how some people are using the old Amish or old style of clotheslines with pulleys. So, after doing some research this is what we came up with. Some of our stuff came from Lowes and some came from Amazon. I will have to say the pulleys are super nice that came from Amazon because the ones from Lowes were plastic. So now instead of picking up my pins and basket a million times to hang clothes I stand in one spot and hang them all!
I did purchase two separators to put into the line of clothes so that it wouldn't allow the bottom string to get too low when I have heavy blankets, jeans, or a lot of towels. One thing I want to note is that all clothesline string gets saggy after a while. When you use the kind that has metal or wire inside of the plastic line you are always having to unwind it and pull as tight as you can to tighten it back up cause over time it starts to sag. This will do the same thing! But with the string tightener, all you do is just pull the string and it tightens it right back up! You will also want to install the tighter on the top strand because that way you will be able to hang more clothes before the tighter taps the pully. It has been a little adjusting since I have always used the other kind, but I don't have to take nearly half the steps I took before, and taking them off the line is sooo much faster. 
This is the separator.
As you are adding clothes to the line, you can slide the separator on and it keeps the lines close to regular height. They will roll as you roll the clothes back to you and I just keep them in my basket with my pins. I will say setting up this line is a little more costly because of purchasing the pulleys and the separators, but in the end, the money you save not running your dryer and not working yourself to death with the basket and clothes is well worth the little extra to me. I also only purchased two separators, one for each line, which totally works. But I hope after a little time I can purchase two more to have two for each line. I will include a list of the items I purchased at the bottom. What do you think? Do you like the line or dryer! Have a great one!
Click on any of the items below and it will open to the page they are located.
You can purchase all of the items on Amazon or most of all of them at Lowes Hardware, but I liked how my pulleys were metal from Amazon, where the wheel on the pulleys from Lowes was plastic. I also purchased my line at Lowes, but couldn't find the exact link for that so I included a link to Amazon for the exact thing I used.
One other thing! If you purchase the pulleys from Amazon, make sure to wash them BEFORE you install them with the cotton line. There will be metal dust that is on them that will put a black or silver metal look on your line. I read this in a few amazon reviews and it was very true. I had to wash mine a few times to get all the residue off them!
