Putting Up a Clothesline

I’m quite pleased with how this turned out!

I have wanted a clothesline outside for at least a year now, and we were able to build our own with things we already had! Luckily, the Big Man has some handyman skills along with his farming skills. One of them being welding.

One of the many remodeling projects we did in this house included upgrading the closets. (We still have to do our first born’s closet.) As you can see from the picture, the closets were custom made using heavy-duty galvanized steel rods. We did leave the entry closet alone because I figured with heavy winter jackets and whatnot hanging up, that rod would be necessary. Anyways, we kept them after we took them out, figuring they may be useful one day. And that day finally came!

The Big Man welded those suckers together in a “T” shape, drilled 5 holes across the top, and painted the rods with whatever paint he had on hand. He’s a John Deere man, so yellow it was! Which I was fine with because it’s a somewhat earthy color? Plus it’ll hide rust better. (Does galvanized steel rust?)

Stick them in a foot deep hole with concrete to secure in place.

Now to just install the actual clothesline. I didn’t realize clothesline came in a variety of materials. Buying the plastic covered wire clothesline was a no-brainer for us. Quick side rant: I noticed a lot of things I’ve been buying lately have that CA warning sticker on them. The one that says this contains chemicals known to cause cancer blah blah blah. I get it. Everything is going to give us cancer. Do you really have to put a sticker on everything??

So I added “install clothesline” to the Big Man’s honey-do list, thinking it was going to require some special thingamabobs and special installation only a handyman knows how to do. Well, I was informed yesterday that even though the planting is done, that the honey-do list will still have to wait till other work is taken care of. I tell you it’s tough being a farmer’s wife! Half sarcastic.

I thought I might as well try tackle some of these smaller jobs myself. I turned to google to see if hanging a clothesline might be easier than I thought. Well I’ll be, it sure is! Off to Hardware Hank I went.

I picked up some 1/8” wire rope clips and headed home.

Super easy to install. Word to the wise though, don’t drop those small nuts. You may be lucky enough to find the first one, but if you don’t learn your lesson and drop another, you won’t be so lucky that time. True story.

Now to test it out! Good thing I did laundry earlier today. I quickly learned not to hang a shirt by the shoulders. I’m not sure if this is the right way to hang clothes either. How do you hang your clothes? Also learned the reason for that little hole in the clothespin!

I’d hang the rest of my laundry if it wasn’t so darn windy out today. Now I’ll have to pay attention to the weather before I do my laundry. I was nervous about the dog thinking the hanging clothes were a new toy for him to play with but I see my shirt is still hanging...so far!

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