Why does it have to be black?

For 40 years I've had a white line across my yard. It is visually intrusive. I decided black would be less visible.

Have you checked the home improvement and hardware stores in your area? They have all kinds of braided cord that might work, although they may not be specifically for clothesline, or they may be able to order it for you. I love our local True Value store. If they don't have what you need they will look to see if they can order it for me.

You don't say if you want cotton, vinyl, plastic, nylon, or something else, and I'm assuming you will be using it for a clothesline.

I'd also suggest looking at the vinyl-coated clothesline cable found at Lehman's if you are replacing your clothesline. It's expensive, but it won't stretch.

If you do find black line, make sure it's colorfast or you could have a whole new problem - black lines on your clothes. Take a short length of it and sit it in a bowl of water for a few hours and see if the dye bleeds into the water.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Lehman's - clothesline cable

This post was edited by grainlady on Fri, Aug 23, 13 at 8:51

You buy poles and string your wire. People rarely do that anymore. I said I wanted my sheets dried on a line, but when I bought a dryer and hung out clothes it was a windless day and everything was stiff and wrinkled, my good intentions went down the drain. No lines for me.

I got new vinyl covered clothesline wire at Home Depot or Lowes, it is green.

I love my line dried sheets, the smell of sunshine. I also like line dried towels. They are very scratchy, not soft and fluffy, but they feel good and buff off dead skin. Everything else goes in the dryer.

This is a bit off topic, but there have been court cases where HOAs have tried to ban clotheslines. But people like them so many states have passed "Right to Dry" laws where a clothesline cannot be banned by a town, HOA or condo association.

Some ways around HOA restrictions.....

I have 6 lines in the basement in one of the unfinished rooms we don't need/use. We installed a ceiling fan to move the air and I line-dry all the laundry in the basement.

There is a 6-foot clothes rod permanently installed on one wall and we hang wet clothes on wooden or plastic Tide hangers to dry on the rod. Everything that normally hangs on a hanger in the closet is hung on a hanger to dry, which saves a lot of space on the lines. The clothes dried on hangers go directly from the basement to the closet.

I do have one tip for drying slacks/pants. I hang them by the bottom of the pants legs, one leg on one line, and the other leg on the line in front of it (keeping seams together so I get a crease in the leg). This way you get the benefit of the heavy wet body of the pants pulling down so they get a nice crease in the legs. Let gravity help you out. This method allows the crotch to dry faster, which tends to stay damp if you hang them from the waist.

In fact, with today's fast spinning washers, it's beneficial to leave a little more moisture in your clothes when you line-dry them. Those 1000 rpm (or faster) spin cycles are beneficial when you use a dryer, but only set wrinkles in clothes destined to dry on a line, so try a slower spin. The additional moisture = weight + gravity will help pull wrinkles out of the fabric naturally. I have a special spin hold cycle on my washer that is designed for hand washables or line drying. It leaves them a little wetter and fewer wrinkles. What wrinkles are there can be quickly smoothed out with your hand.

Other great benefits from an indoor clothesline......
-No bird "bombs".
-No bugs/bees/wasps hiding in the pant legs or sleeves.
-No allergens from the air clinging to the fabrics.
-No sun fading colors and destroying the fabrics.
-No sun destroying elastic.
-Don't have to worry if there is an unexpected rain shower, soot in the air if someone burns a wheat stubble field and you get flecks of black debris on your clothes, and many other problems solved.
-No fabric-destroying wind whipping and snapping the ends of clothes.
-Clothes last soooooooo much longer than when you hang them outside OR use a dryer.

I read where one inventive gal raised the hinge pins on the door hinge of a little-used guest bedroom just enough to put a clothes line around it from the door to the door on the closet hinge pin, to a hook located by a window, then back to the door, so she had 3 lines in that room.

When we first moved into this home and before we had our landscape done and the clothesline courtyard finished with the umbrella-style clothes line, I strung 2 long lines in the garage between the car bays and turned on a high-speed fan hubby keeps in the garage. Where there's a will, there's a way. ;-)

-Grainlady

Drying clothes in air and sunlight consumes no natural resources. In addition, sunlight includes ultraviolet rays which destroy viruses and kill bacteria.

Clothes dryers use at least electricity and perhaps also natural gas. Electricity production also uses natural gas, or coal, or oil, at least in most parts of the country. Global warming from increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere is all due to one single cause - the burning of fossil fuel - coal, oil, and natural gas. So. every time you dry clothes by machine instead of using air and sunlight, you contribute some small amount to global warming.

Most people don't care. That's the problem.

I dry clothes outside year round, as much as possible--I try to wash only on days when the weather is decent. I, too, use Grainlady's method for drying pants so they are nicely creased, need no ironing. The one refinement I've made to the outside drying process--I use my very large, roof-covered deck. Had DH install hooks on the supports to string the line. The door to the deck is 3 steps from my washer/dryer. It's roofed, so no bird problems, and if it unexpectedly starts raining, no problem there, either.

Nice, that living in the country, the air is clean enough to do that--for the first 39 years of our marriage, we lived in the suburbs--too much pollution to line dry outside--clothes would have come in dirtier than before they were washed.

I ONLY like cotton clothesline, and the cream-colored line I use doesn't seem that offensive to me. It's only there when you're drying clothes, right? You take it down between washes, so the color is negligible, really.

Azzalea, You sound as though you have the perfect clothesline set up. My line goes from tree to tree in our country back yard and I do not take it down between washings. I have no problem with having it up. I actually like it that way for visitors sometimes ask me what it is (yes! many people actually do not recognize a clothesline or even know what it is for!!). That allows me to extol the virtues of drying clothes on a line - the lovely smell, the lack of wrinkles, the savings of energy, etc.

I am a writer and, for many years, had a column in Country Living Magazine called "Kids in the Country." One of my stories was titled "The Sweet Smell of Sunshine." You can read it here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=XZF4SBRtRgQC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=the+sweet+smell+of+sunshine+bedford+faith+country+living&source=bl&ots=Gk0trILbDD&sig=vOu5RmPR7lsUCXZIfhkBhPCO7rM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-_YxUt3SA7Hc4AOmr4GwCQ&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20sweet%20smell%20of%20sunshine%20bedford%20faith%20country%20living&f=false

But my husband would not like to see a white line against the dark green of the bushes, hence my search for black. It is purely aesthetics.

I was thinking a bit more about this--have you considered that a dark clothesline could be 'missed' by someone (even yourself or husband) walking in the back yard and they could walk into it? I think having a white one is a definite, needed safety precaution.

Mine's light to medium blue plastic over twisted wire, strung between to T-posts, stays up year round, one has a pulley at each end so that I can put all of the clothes out while standing in one place..

Need to do a wash soon ... when this, the first snow, goes.

ole joyful ... who next to never has trouble with bird poop ... or are his eyes just getting bad?

I have the same problem with finding a black clothesline. Please tell me which of rope on the homepage you bought. There are too many to choose from.
In my world should towels and clothes be a little rough. When they begin to soften, it is time to change them.

This has nothing to do with getting a black clothesline, but just wanted to share. I installed one of those retractable lines outside. The line is a bit thin but it works for me. To prevent clothes being rough, I hang out till almost dry, and then put in dyer just long enough to fluff up.