Hanging Laundry in a small laundry room.

My apologies for taking so long to post a new project. I’ve been working on lots of things.

Ah, hem….
Long ago I went to a yard sale… (it gets better)
This was the yard sale of a compulsive shopper, and everything there was brand new. I got towels, a fancy iron, leather purse, waffle iron, too much to list… but I also bought a strange thing called a “laundry mate”.

It’s supposed to be used for men’s dress shirts, it has all rods that are supposed to conform into a human form allowing the sleeves to dry nicely so you don’t have to iron the shirts…. Sounding stranger the further I go… so, I will just say that I bought it not for what it could do... but for what it was going to become.

Over 3 years later, I came across the box it lives in and I finally said…. “Let’s make this sucker! I want to hang laundry in my laundry room and not in my spare room.”
(One more thing to add… I think I bought two of them at the yard sale and put all the parts into one box. Which is why I have so many pieces.)

The parts are all plastic, and this is what some of them look like. I’m only concerned with the pieces I’ve put letters next to for ease of understanding what I’ve done.

Then I bought two thin wood boards costing like .60 cents each and painted them white.

I drilled holes into the A pieces, then into the boards (at measured intervals), and then used small bolts and nuts to connect the A pieces to the .60 cent boards.
I made two identical.
Then I slid the B rods into the A holes ( LOL) and connected the C caps to the B rods. Thus connecting both .60 cent boards into something resembling a ladder.Then I drilled a hole into each of the .60 cent boards near the end. I put a karabiner through that hole.

(The karabiner's were the most expensive part of the project... having to buy a pack of six for $7.)

And then connected the karabiner to an eye screw I put into the wall.

Here’s where I admit that I was SUPER lucky to line up both eye screws with wall studs. (I use a stud finder on a regular basis, but rarely get so lucky I get to screw into two studs on one project.) So… simple enough. I made sure before deciding the height of the eye screws that the length of my ladder thing would be able to rest on the top of my washer and dryer.

K, THEN… I got a piece of wood, cut it just wider than the ladder, screwed large hooks into the ends, spaced the same distance as the .60 cent boards.

Then I used butterfly screws to attach this board to the ceiling. No way was I going to try and mess with whether or not I would find wood in the ceiling to screw into… working over my head is hard enough.

I attached it at a distance that would allow the ends of my ladder to rest inside the hooks just right.

I use my laundry hanger both up and down…. It’s easier to load down, and if I don’t have to be going in and out, I go ahead and leave it down while the laundry dries.

Now, I realize this isn’t a project that everyone is going to do cause they have a “laundry mate” hanging around in a box under the stairs, but I’ve posted this in the hopes that you may be inspired to take one thing that might be a poor idea/invention, and turn it into a great idea that fits YOUR space.

I’d like to add, if you ever do a project inspired from one of mine, and would like to share, please feel free to email me pictures (instructions if you wish) and I will post it here on my blog. getskatty@q.com (Yep with a k)

TFL!