3 Creative Ways to Dry Clothes in an Apartment
LAUNDRY TIPS
What goes up must come down, and what gets wet must be dried. But drying clothes isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Maybe you live in a small apartment and don’t have room for a full-sized dryer. There’s always a clothesline, but in most apartments, that’s a no-go too, at least when it comes to outdoor clotheslines. So what are your options? Take a look at some of the ways to use the space that you’ve got to dry your clothes.
Indoor Clothesline
A lack of outdoor space is a problem in apartments for many reasons, but it’s not an insurmountable problem. For example, people who live in apartments and want to grow plants, but don’t have the outdoor space in which to do so may be able to get around the problem by using containers and grow lights for indoor growing. Similarly, people who want to dry clothes but don’t have the outdoor space for a clothesline can try simply hanging one indoors.
This is probably the cheapest and lowest-tech route to getting dry clothes. You’ll need to find a space that gets sunlight or circulated air and that won’t get in the way of anything else that you’re doing. Consider hanging your clothesline between two door openings that you don’t use often, along the wall in a room that is infrequently used, or over the bathtub.
A Drying Rack
If you’ve got a little bit of money to spend on solving the problem, a drying rack can be a good solution. You can find drying racks at home improvement or department stores. They come in several shapes and a variety of sizes.
Some drying racks come with a mechanism that actually dries the clothes – you hang the laundry, put the cover over the rack, and turn the machine on, and it circulates air underneath the cover. Others simply give you a place to hang the clothes, and they dry on their own. Some are portable. Others can be attached to a wall, a window, or another surface as a permanent fixture. The best one for you will depend on your budget, your needs, and the available space in your apartment.
An Apartment-Sized Dryer
Maybe you can’t fit a full-size dryer into your apartment, but you may be able to fit a smaller one, and if you have more than a few dollars to put into solving the problem, a dryer meant to fit in small spaces might be the right answer for you.
You’ll need to find one that works with the hookups available in your apartment; if you have hookups for a gas dryer, you can’t use an electric dryer, and vice versa. If you don’t have a lot of floor space, some smaller models can be wall-mounted to save space. Keep in mind that these small dryers won’t dry your clothes as quickly as a regular dryer, but it will still be faster than air drying.