Before there were dryers...(or how Eve did her laundry)

One of the things that made Tyler swoon when we first toured this house was it's ridiculously enormous utility room. Its huge. Like, the size of two large bedrooms combined, huge. Personally, I think I'd rather have an extra two bedrooms, but I've found even I am enjoying the huge space that affords us way more storage than the average single family home (which almost makes up for the fact that our entire garage is committed to Whimsy's inventory...if only we could park a car in the utility room).

On one end of the room is both our furnaces and humidifier, the water heater, the washer dryer, Tyler's server/network area, and loads of storage. The other end of the room currently houses three large closets dedicated to food storage, shelving for "stuff," Tyler's tools, Tyler's table saw, a second fridge, and more cubbies for storage. In the middle is a wide open expanse I try not to use as a dumping ground.

A month or so ago, Tyler strung two clotheslines that reach across the room. I {{{LOVE}}} them! I didn't realize how much I'd use them until they were there...and I do. I really do use them. This is something we did not have at the last house (downside of having the washer/dryer in a hall closet), so anything that couldn't go in the dryer ended up being flung over the backsides of chairs and couches. It made the long process of laundry seem even longer and more arduous. Now, I get to hang my air-dry laundry and walk away, closing the door behind me. Who knew such a time-honored practice would feel like such a luxury?

So --

The other day I was cleaning the bathroom downstairs, listening to the boys wander through the house together. They eventually ended up in the utility room. And this is what I heard (coming from a very wise 7-year old voice):

Jonah: "Sam, do you see the rope up there? That's how they used to do laundry in the olden days. Its very old fashioned, you know. A long, long time ago, back when Adam and Eve were still alive, they didn't have dryers, so they had to hang up their clothes on strings. They'd wash their clothes in the washing machine but then they'd have to pull them out and hang them up to dry like that. Can you believe that??? We're really lucky that we have dryers now because if we didn't, it would take so long to dry all our laundry, we'd never have clean underwear to wear! Adam and Eve had a lot of kids so I bet Eve wished she had a dryer like Mom, instead of some string..."

Sam agreed emphatically.


I don't know, though. Seems like a dryer would be pretty far down on Eve's wish list.

Honestly, I bet she would have been happy with toilet paper.