Introduction: Hang 10 (or More Pieces of Clothes)

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Tired of all those really flimsy metal clothes hanging racks like this, I decided to build one myself out of wood.
It has a higher clothes hanging capacity, sturdier frame, and better look.

Here's whats needed:
  • 12 planks/boards of equal length (you could do these with eight, with four of the boards being longer than the rest)
  • 2 Bolts (greater length than two times your boards width)
  • 12 wood screws
  • 8 L-fasteners
  • rope to your desire
  • matches, a lighter, or the ability to tie a knot

Step 1: Raw Materials

This is what I started with:
12 pieces of hard wood that were previously mattress supports in a bed frame.

Step 2: Come Together...

I assembled the 12 pieces to form two larges rectangles, staggered inside each other.

Because the side supports were two separate pieces of wood, I had to fasten them together with something.

Settling on not spending any money on this project, I took L-supports from the closet-thingy project and hammered them down flat, then used them as strapping fasteners across the wide side of the supports.

I am looking to change this as it has proved workable but not as sturdy as I wanted.

Step 3: End Results

The ends of the rectangle were screwed together with wood screws.
Since this is a hard wood I was working with I pre-drilled the holes.

Step 4: X Marks the Spot

I drilled a hole at the stagger point of the two rectangles, then placed a bolt with washers on both sides through the hole.

Step 5: Knots Landing

To string this all together, I had some acrylic rope around the house that I cut to length after deciding how low i wanting the clothes to hang while the rack was unfolded.

For some of the ends I tied knots, and for others I used matches and burned the acrylic into balls, dipped them in water to cool, and let them dry.

Tying knots is safer, as my left index finger can attest to after meeting molten plastic on its way to the floor.

Step 6: Finished Product

So this is the finished product. We can now hang about 2 1/2 loads of laundry on this, as opposed to the less than 1 load on the old metal Chinese racks.

Granted the instructions are vague on some points, but this project is not brain science. With left over wood and rope, the only additional cost were the screws and some more rope to complete the lines, which only took about 5USD in total.