by Jessi Wohlwend
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!
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.
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…
Shannah @ Just Us Four says
Thank you so much for linking this great project up to the Pinworthy Projects Party over at Just Us Four!
K @ Claiming Our Space says
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.
Rickie says
Why couldn’t you use a spring/tension rod to do the same thing.
Jessi says
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!
Dennise says
Great idea! We just moved into a new retirement house and I will miss my old laundry/clothes hanging set up.
Thanks for sharing.
K Coake says
Great idea! The incetive to put it all away doesn’t hurt in the least – at least if your like me.
Jessi says
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!
melissa says
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!!
Jessi says
Thanks Melissa!
Kathryn Griffin says
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
Betsy @ Romance on a Dime says
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!
Mandy says
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!
Katie says
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
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
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.