Laundry Line, or We Don't Really Know What's Wrong With the Dryer

Below you see an array of my son's clothes. They're hanging on a pole that is mounted to the underside of the floor joists overhead in the laundry room. This is the spot that is almost always occupied by some bike, usually an old Schwinn, hanging in varying stages of deconstruction. The bikes have been pushed aside recently as our dryer is broken! The pole now is an indoor clothes line.

This summer my husband strung line outside in the backyard from our tree to the shed and we started drying our clothes outside as much as possible. The kids liked to help in this and would take turns climbing up a shaky step ladder to pin the clothes to the line. The clothes would sway in the breezes and get fresh and warm in the sunshine. Sheets would billow out catching the wind like sails. It felt like it brought back another time--one that I didn't have as a kid. We dried our clothes in the dryer. Somehow, both my husband and I have romantic notions about simple domesticity. I still don't like to dust, but we both like the idea of clothes swaying in the breezes.



On the other hand...this. Well, this is just clothes hanging in the basement because the dryer broke. There's nothing romantic about this. No one does any Winslow Homeresque water colors with a cat's litter box in the corner and an ironing board leaning against the wall.




There's been some discussion that maybe the coil that ignites the gas is burnt out. Huh.

So...are we gonna fix this?? Is this OK for our compact, or should we just hang the clothes and not worry about it? We could argue that's it's a health issue--we need clean clothes that we can wear. But, of course, we can hang the clothes and they will slowwwwwwly dry. They WILL dry.

I think we may be hanging clothes for a while. What do you think? Maybe I can get out my watercolors and paint any way...