Pulley-controlled Clothes Drying Rack

I recently returned from a 3 month trip to New Zealand, during which I did a few weeks of wwoofing.  The folks at the first farm on which I worked, called Earthstead, had this super cool clothes drying system in/above their living room and I had to share it!

The hooks on the wall allow you to secure the rack at various heights between the ceiling and the floor.  The first pulley (near the top left of first photo simply changes direction of the rope from wall to ceiling beam. The second and third pulleys create mechanical advantage/lifting for the left side of the rack (from this viewpoint), and the fourth and fifth pulleys do the same for the opposite side.  After the rope goes through the black, freely-moving pulley, it goes directly to an anchor in the beam.

The rack itself is rectangular wooden frame with a taut cable fed through holes in the wood (like tennis racket strings) acting as the actual drying lines.

Check out Earthstead here: www.earthstead.co.nz.

Awesome!

Comments

[KarstenS11]

Thanks for the Idea. This is what I was lookng for :)

[davidmstephenson]

Nice photos, but where are the instructions? This isn't pinterest.

[rjtumble]

Hi, great instructable. I'm going to modify this to create a lift for a bike rack so I can hide it in the carport instead of hanging it on a wall.

Unrelated to that, how was your wwoofing experience? I'm considering doing that as my first trip to NZ. Do you recommend it in general and/or for a first trip?

[tcone]

Sounds great! Wwoofing was a great experience; I recommend it highly. I planned it for the first 2 weeks of my trip so it would give me a base to get my bearings, learn about places I should go, and get over jet lag. Turned out to be a perfect plan - it was a great launching pad for the rest of my trip. Best of luck planning your trip!

[timwikander]

Very cool

[dana-dxb]

this is awesome i was looking for something like this thanx a bunch for the share

[Najwahamid]

Good idea