DIY: Rig Up Accessible Laundry Bags

The laundry hamper situation in our household has always irked me slightly. I like laundry hampers with wire or some sort of “boning” that holds them open so that they stand up on their own and are always accessible. My husband likes drawstring fabric bags because they are very easy to carry up and down the three flights of stairs between our apartment and the laundry room in the basement of our apartment complex. The problem with my style of hampers is that they’re awkward to carry when they’re heavy and full; the problem with JM’s hampers is that they don’t stay open and it isn’t the easiest to get your dirty clothes into them (if it isn’t super easy to do it’s pretty likely that my clothes will just end up on the floor instead :-p).

We’ve tried both styles of hampers, and even combinations of the two where we put JM’s bags inside of my hampers so that they have some shape/form to them but we can carry just the bag downstairs to do laundry later. None of it really works very well though. It’s like a tiny little mosquito of annoyance that I can swat away, but it always comes back later and I’m reminded again and again that I haven’t found a good solution yet.

So imagine my excitement when, while browsing through the DIY & Crafts page on Pinterest a while ago, I stumbled across a picture of a brilliant solution! In fact (unfortunately) I was so excited that I didn’t even take the time to repin the pin, I just went right ahead and recreated it, so now I can’t even point you back to the source of my inspiration 🙁

However… LOOK!

Laundry bags held open with embroidery hoops
It’s both always open AND easy to carry!

Duh, it’s like the simplest idea ever, but it hadn’t occurred to me before. To recreate this I used:

  • an embroidery hoop (I found these at Michael’s for about $3 each, they are 12″ hoops)
  • a laundry bag (about $5 each at Target), or you can use an extra pillow case
  • a 3M hook
  • a 4″ piece of ribbon

You just open up the embroidery hoop and put it around the laundry bag, then stick the 3M hook to the wall and use the ribbon to hang the hoop from the hook. It takes about five minutes and voila! Instant always-open always-accessible laundry bags!!! It’s perfect for us because I can easily just toss my clothes into the bags when they’re dirty and when it’s time to do laundry we can just open up the hoops and carry the bags downstairs. Yay!

Laundry bags and embroidery hoops held on wall with 3m hook
Up close look at the hoop/hook/ribbon assembly

How do you deal with your laundry/laundry hampers? Is that even a thing you worry about or pay attention to in your house? Maybe I’m just super picky… 🙂

Laundry bags held open with embroidery hoops
I took a second picture to try to get it a little sharper, but my cat totally photo-bombed this one 🙂
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. Jessi says

    12 years ago

    I used to have a nice wicker hamper (also with a lid) but I did the same thing Hyphen did… 🙂

    I swear we've been through about 11 different kinds of hampers trying to get this figured out! This one is working incredibly well so far; I have high hopes.

  2. Katie says

    12 years ago

    How clever! I must say that one of the biggest advantages of a house is not having to go to a laundromat. ^_^

    But I've been having problems with this, too, mostly because Hyphen has this wood hamper that he's had forever and admittedly looks nice–but it has a lid. He's always closing the lid, then setting something on top, then dumping all his clothing on the floor instead of into the hamper. Sigh.

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