DIY Laundry Drying Rack

We live in an apartment, so we don’t have our own washer and dryer in our apartment. But we are lucky enough to have laundry in the basement of the building so that we don’t have to schlep our clothes to and from a laundromat, yay!

Not having our own laundry room does make doing laundry a bit more difficult however. I don’t have a laundry sink for soaking stained clothing, and I don’t have a drying rack for hanging delicate clothing to dry if I don’t want to stick it in the dryer.

But the lack of a drying rack is easy enough to deal with!

DIY Laundry Drying Rack

It isn’t painted or pretty or anything, but it’s totally practical and functional!

I always take any delicate clothing out of the dryer after 10 minutes and let them air dry the rest of the way so that they don’t shrink, so this drying rack is perfect! (Yes, I realize jeans aren’t really “delicates”, but I have really long legs so my jeans have to come out after 10 minutes or they get too short :-p)

All you need is a dowel, hardware to hang it up, and an empty hallway! I got the dowel and hardware from Home Depot for under $5, and we already had the perfect hallway right outside of our bedroom.

DIY Laundry Drying Rack

DIY Laundry Drying Rack

The only problem is that the bedroom door, bathroom door, and closet door all open out into this space, so it can make it a little difficult to walk around in those areas. But it’s a good incentive to get the clean clothes put away as soon as they’re dry!

Do you air dry your laundry? Any fun tips or tricks for doing it? Do you have any other laundry-related tips? I want to try making my own laundry soap, but we have this GIANT box of store bought stuff and I’d feel bad if we didn’t use it, so I’m waiting until that’s gone…

 
 
I link up at these awesome parties!

Jessi Wohlwend

I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience. I love sharing simple craft ideas, step by step DIY project tutorials, cleaning hacks, and other tips and tricks all with one goal in mind: giving you the tools you need to “do it yourself”, complete fun projects, and make awesome things!

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Reader Interactions

  1. K @ Claiming Our Space says

    12 years ago

    We have several racking in our current laundry room in the basement but we want to bring the W/D upstairs into a smaller space (to be more convenient) and will be getting creative when that happens. Thanks so much for sharing on Tout It Tuesday. Hope to see you tomorrow.

  2. Rickie says

    12 years ago

    Why couldn’t you use a spring/tension rod to do the same thing.

    • Jessi says

      12 years ago

      You totally could. In fact, in our old apartment we did. But sometimes I had so many clothes up there that it couldn’t really handle the weight and came crashing down, and also the little black rubber ends kept making marks on the walls when we tried to twist it to get it to stay up better. So in this apartment we decided to actually “install” a rod instead of using a tension rod.

      But for anyone who doesn’t want to drill holes, a tension rod might totally work for you!

  3. Dennise says

    12 years ago

    Great idea! We just moved into a new retirement house and I will miss my old laundry/clothes hanging set up.
    Thanks for sharing.

  4. K Coake says

    12 years ago

    Great idea! The incetive to put it all away doesn’t hurt in the least – at least if your like me.

    • Jessi says

      12 years ago

      Haha, yep! Actually, sometimes we leave it up there anyways and just sort of duck as we walk in and out of our room. But mostly it’s a good reminder to get it cleaned up!

  5. melissa says

    12 years ago

    Such a great idea! I really want a clothesline but we haven’t gotten to that project yet. This I think I could handle on my own. Thanks for sharing. Great website by the way!!

  6. Kathryn Griffin says

    12 years ago

    Smarty pants! Thank you for sharing this at my Make it Pretty Monday party at The Dedicated House. Hope to see your prettiness again on Monday. Toodles, Kathryn @TheDedicatedHouse

  7. Betsy @ Romance on a Dime says

    12 years ago

    We made our own drying space in the basement by hanging rope (we tied it to the boards in our unfinished basement). Great idea! Thanks for linking up to Romance on a dime’s TIOT party!

  8. Mandy says

    12 years ago

    OK. This is such a great idea. I am so tired of hanging my clothes over doors and chairs. I will be doing this ASAP!

  9. Katie says

    12 years ago

    I airdry almost all of my clothes because they last longer that way. I have three of those accordion drying racks but need more, because I like to dry them relatively flat so they don’t stretch out or get creases. Racks take up a lot more room than an unobtrusive rod in the hallway, though! ^_^

    Our washer and dryer are in the garage and I don’t have a proper laundry room with fancy soaking tub or anything, either. 🙁 I’m actually working on at least organizing the space so it’s clean and we can find everything. And I’m typing up stain removal instructions and instructions for cleaning out the machines and things so that we’ll have all the info in one place.

    As for the soap, when the giant thing from Sam’s Club ran out, I used that container to mix the homemade stuff in. So it works out perfectly to be patient. ^_^

    • Jessi says

      12 years ago

      Awesome, I’m so excited for making my own soap! In a perfect world I’d love for a gorgeous yard out back where I could line dry all our clothes (so they’d smell like outdoors!) but we’re not quite there yet. 🙂

      • Katie says

        12 years ago

        Plus, frankly, hauling things inside and outside adds yet another step to hauling them out to the garage and back upstairs to my room. And is it really a good idea to hang laundry out “where the winds come sweeping down the plain?” 😉

        But yes, I’m thinking about how we could do a line outside, especially if we do cloth diapers, since those mostly air dry, too.

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