I used to have a bar hanging out in my garage for laundry. I hung wet suits on a hanger out there.

How much would it interfere with bathroom dynamics if you put another shower curtain rod in the bathroom? Instead of hanging it where you need the curtain, you could center it over the tub so the drips would go in the tub.

I guess another option would be to get one of those foldable wooden things for drying laundry. (I cant think of the name right now.) You could place that on a back porch or deck in the shade. Hang the towels over the rods and put the suits on hangers so you'd have room for everything.

I put up some of the Command removable self-adhesive hooks on the bathroom wall, and we hang them there.

The kids wring the suits out pretty well, plus it's usually an hour at least between when the kids took them off and when they get hung on the hook, so they don't drip THAT much, and I figure if they're going to drip anywhere, they might as well drip on the waterproof tiles in the bathroom. It evaporates eventually.

You could put those removable hooks on the wall over the tub, and then the suits can drip in the tub.

Or you could put a springloaded tension shower rod over the tub, and use a clothespin hook to hang the swimming suits from the rod.

I don't think you can eliminate the work. Except perhaps by not doing it.

My kids leave in the morning and take all their suits with them. So, there's no putting away. They hang their suits up when they get home. They take them, dry, off the hook in the morning and put them in their tote bag. At the end of the week, they go through the laundry.

They use the same towel all day--and it gets changed more often.

Since I hang the suits on the wall, I don't have to move them out of the way ever--they just hang there until they're needed again.

It'd be great if the suits & towels could hang to dry in the same place they'll be stored, with no mess to clean. Am I asking too much?

That's essentially what I do. I "store" them on the hooks on the bathroom wall. You just have to be willing to change the reality of "don't put them away" into a mental definition of "storing them there."

I think the realities of your house (which we cannot see) will tell you what sorts of places you could put them.

People w/ patios could hand this stuff on the patio railing (unless it rains--and if it does rain, who cares if the suits get wet? nobody's going swimming in them anyway).

In the house I grew up in, my mom would have bought a folding laundry rack and set it up on the back porch for the summer. It would never have moved. We'd have put our suits and towels there when we got home, and when we needed them bcs it was time to leave for the pool, we'd have picked them up off the rack on our way out the door. Every now and then, we'd send stuff through the laundry.

In my mom's current house, she'd probably do what I do--put up hooks or extra towel bars in the bathroom. (or change a single towel bar to a double.

And she'd just ignore all the extra stuff hanging around. Unless there was a big shindig with lots of company.

We don't have exactly the same thing going on at our house, but we always have wet towels and soggy gym clothes that need hanging almost every day year-round. We bought a towel stand that we used in our laundry/mudroom. Upon walking into the house my husband and I place our stuff on the towel stand and it sits there to dry. If a load of clothes is waiting to be washed, the gym clothes or towels are there and ready to go. If not, dry items are taken up to the hamper. If I had room for a hamper downstairs, it would be a perfect system, but alas. When we updated our kitchen and laundry/mudroom, we had a towel bar permanently installed near the washer and dryer. Bathing suits could easily substitute for wet gym clothes.

I like the idea of an extra shower curtain rod in the shower to hold the bathing suits, especially if they're very drippy. I agree with Talley Sue's statement, You just have to be willing to change the reality of "don't put them away" into a mental definition of "storing them there." Sometimes having a system that functions well is more important than having everything put away ideally. Once we set up the space to support our active gym and workout routines, it was so much easier and no longer a source of friction. This is our lifestyle and we have a small house -- that's just the way it goes.

Tina

In our two bathrooms -- we switched from towel rods or rails to double coat hooks because of guests .... and our pool.

When we moved in -- we hung two three-hook coat racks on the wall in the main bathroom. And a plastic grid-style rack with six more hooks in our bathroom too! This move alone has eliminated SO much fuss and bother over wet towels -- and given LOTS of hanging space for towels ..... literally six towels are hung up in each bathroom. And no arguing about folding towels!

As for wet suits -- and the pool --- LOOK around your pool area. Is there any room or wall that could have sturdy outside hooks? So that you could rinse out the suits and hang back outside? Hanging suits in the shower are can work too -- maybe plastic hooks stuck onto the tiles?

I will say this about hooks vs. bars: I believe kids will be less likely to leave their towels bunched up (and therefore less able to dry) on a bar; to hang something on a hook, you often have to shake it out, or gravity pulls it into a single layer.

I have contemplated sewing twill-tape loops on the side of every towel, so they will be easy to hang in a single layer, no bunching.

Good hints above. Just make sure the suits get rinsed in clear water every day. Swimming pool chemicals are wicked. They stink, weaken the fabric and bleach out color. After a summer in pools, my hair turned blond.

I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I am the last person in America with an outdoor clothesline!!!!

LOL Cathy, you are one of the last two.
It is a fresh and windy day here in Wisconsin after that cold front came through last night. My towels are all out in the sun getting that fresh air scent.

-Lena

Lena -- What a riot! I did sheets today because of the same reason! It amazes me -- all those dryer sheets that proclaim fresh breeze scent and nothing lasts as long and smells as good as lined dried sheets!!

Thanks for the Doonesbury laugh!!!

Cathy (PS --where are you in WI?)

I bought my DD chlorine-fighting shampoo.

I've toyed with the idea of sending her to camp each day w/ a plastic bag w/ a teeny bit of shampoo squirted in, and having her put in her suit, and a little water,a nd swooshing it around, then dumping most of it out.

when she gets home, she can rinse it well in the sink, and let it dry.

Her swimming suit is *trashed* about 3/4 of the way through the season. (and her hair was like straw, too).

I may try to get her to do that, this summer.

Also, once you've figured out where you're willing to put what, and assuming you keep in mind some kid-friendly principles in location, height, time& motion issues as offered above, get the kids involved to keep up the system and let it be a self-correcting one! Icky stinky suit? Well, who left it in a wad? No clean towels? Not my problem! Kids can do laundry (especially during the free days of summer)! My girls did their own laundry from a young age, and that really kept me out of the problem of policing whether they might be stuffing perfectly clean clothes in their hampers when cleaning up their rooms, leaving things on the floor to get wrinkled, or stepped on, etc. This system does not work for everyone, and you have to be willing to not feel it's a reflection on you if they don't have a fresh towel, or whatever. We did try to have 2 suits each summer to trade off, but even that is not required.

Hope anti-chlorine shampoo will help with the swimming pool chlorine issues for y'all.

all those dryer sheets that proclaim fresh breeze scent
They're nothing like my 'folded sunshine' in the linen closet.

OT to Cathy: I'm in Middleton, just NW of Madison, WI. Not on a farm, but I can see one from here!

-Lena

Excellent ideas! Thanks everyone, I knew you all would know what to do. :)

I hang our suits and towels on our shady rear patio just outside the door. They dry fast. I just put up some towel hooks and painted them to match the house.

Are there any clips or hooks that slip over a towel bar/rod - something that can't be taken off easily (like shower curtain rings but with clips)?

I like that clothespin hook, but my boys (heathens, really) would probably take them off and use them for a game of war.

well, you could use that plastic-coated wire (get it at Home Depot, maybe in the gardening section? Or salvage it from toy packaging, the way I do) and twist it through either the center hole of a regular wooden clothespin or twist it to one of those clothespins made of plastic-coated wire.

Or wire a clothespin to a shower-curtain ring.

"Are there any clips or hooks that slip over a towel bar/rod - something that can't be taken off easily (like shower curtain rings but with clips)?"

Try using those drapery/curtain rings that have clips:

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=1285&f=9537

Ikea has them too, so does JCPenny, Target, ect., ect. They come in all sort of sizes and some have 'style' too.

I have a short towel bar on the end tub wall, and the clips are great for drying hand washables. And I keep my exfoliating shower gloves clipped there since they would always fall of of the towel bar if they were draped over it to dry.

Here is a link that might be useful: Curtain Rings with Clips

We are in So cal near the beach and had an outdoor shower and a clothesline nearby. That way beach sand didn't get tracked in and the suits, surfboards, etc. hung or stacked near the fence. Now I have a floor sink in the laundry room with a rack to hang suits, etc.. We just finished remodeling.

Our new addition has a guest bath that my teens can use to enter the house (instead of coming through the kitchen, as before.) In the ajoining guest room, I reseced the tv into the wall into the bathroom, creating an ackward "bump out". I will be putting hooks on that area. The recesed area under it, will have a copper rain gutter to catch the water. It's not done yet, I hope it works.

We're just finishing a pool and have no fencing in the immediate area. I can just see the towels lying all over the place. I was trying to think of a clever and attractive way to make a towel post - a wood 6x6 post with towel hooks on all the sides - so that the towels left around the pool could be hung out there to dry. Any clever and/or attractive ideas?

I would think you could put up a short length of fencing--two posts, w/ rails between them at top and middle. w/ hooks. You could even make it into a bench sort of thing, so there's somewhere permanent to sit, or you want.

Great ideas, but I was starting to think I was the only one to hang them on the fence!! I did that years ago when my kids were little. They dried quickly and the kids could reach it to hang their suits and towels themselves. Of course, they have to be rinsed first, but that option worked best for me. If you have a taller fence, you could just add some hooks on there that the kids could reach. I don't particularly care for the chlorine smell in the bathroom every evening! :>)

~Jackie

I started a thread on 'where do you hang your towels' in May on the Pool forum. We decided to do a 'towel tree'. Went out and bought the PVC pipes to make one, and DH still hasn't assembled it with the kids. HTH.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wet towels/swim suit thread

Thanks Jessy, I'll read the thread. :)