Build a Clothes Line in 6 Steps

Excluding the unpleasant prospect of hanging clothes outdoors to dry during cold winter months, you will find that an outdoor clothes line can have some definite advantages, such as its economy and a fresh, outdoor smell. If this appeals to you and if you'd like to dry your laundered clothes on an old fashioned outdoor clothes line, you may be surprised to learn that you can construct a clothes line easily in a two-day period of time—and in 6 simple steps.

Here are the materials and tools you'll need:

• Pick and shovel, or post hole digger
• Fence pole cement mix
• 2 4x4-inch wood poles, each 7feet long
• Non-rust clothes line
• Level
• Twine
• (6) 12-inch stakes
• Hammer, or sledge hammer

Step 1: Choose Your Preferred Type of Clothes Line

Traditional T-Bar. The advantage of this type of clothes line is that it can hold virtually as many clothes as you'd like it to hold. Its only limitations are the space it will take up in your yard and the tensile strength of its clothes lines. The more wet clothes hanging from the lines, the greater will be the strain on the lines.

Umbrella Type. Advantages of this type are that it takes up less yard space and that you can take it down when you're not planning to use it.

The instructions below are intended for construction of the T-Bar type.

Step 2:  Locate Your Clothes Line

Choose a site where the clothes line will be out of sight of visitors or passersby. Also, find a location that is free of trees to avoid sap or bird droppings falling on your hanging clothes.

Step 3: Plan Your Posts and Post Holes

For the T-Bar version of clothes line, you'll need to dig 2 holes, each 2 feet deep. Unless you know where your underground power lines, gas lines, and telephone lines are buried, you should call your local utility companies to help you locate them, so that you can avoid accidentally severing one or more of these lines. When you dig your holes, make them larger in diameter at the bottom than at the top. This will help prevent your poles from loosening after they are planted.

Step 4: Add Cement to Your Holes

Pour dry post hole cement mix into the post hole, add water, and mix it until you get the right consistency. Leave 4-feet of space above the surface of your concrete and the top of the hole. Planting your post in the wet concrete will cause the concrete surface to rise.

Step 5: Planting Your Posts

Plant your post down through the wet concrete until it rests solidly on the bottom of the hole. Then, using your twine, stakes, hammer, and level, stake the pole to keep it plumb until the concrete sets. Plant your second pole the same way.

Step 6: Adding Your Clothesline

Using clothes line pulleys, clothes line tightener, and clothes line, all of which you should be able to buy at a home improvement store, you can now finish installing your line.