Turn A Vintage Cooling Rack Into Innovative Laundry Room Storage
Who says a space-saving drying rack for your laundry room can't be as decorative as it is innovative and practical? It can be if you're willing to repurpose that smart-looking vintage French wooden cooling rack you found at the thrift store. This hack takes advantage of the kitchen item's built-in stylistic elements, like long slats of wood or bamboo held together by a frame. As TikTokker @whitneyleighmorris demonstrated, those features become the building blocks for a handsome fold-up wall rack and temporary closet space. The cooling rack just needs a few tweaks to take it from kitchen staple to laundry room storage piece.
When you're searching for a French baking rack for this DIY, look for one that features a rectangular frame that houses vertical or horizontal bars in its center. Unlike round cooling racks, this ensures you have enough storage space for your clean clothes and linens. If you're using this piece as an inspiration to style your laundry room in French country decor, go with a wooden rack rather than metal; natural materials play a big role in that design style.
You'll also need a couple of hooks, some screws, a drill, a pair of scissors, and some twine or rattan cord. The DIY additionally calls for a knob of sorts, which keeps the rack folded up against the wall when it's not in use. This can be constructed from something as simple as scrap wood and some screws.
Constructing the wall-mounted laundry rack
Before you construct the shelf, give some thought to where it'll go. Because it folds up against the wall, it's an item you can hang above the washer and dryer, which helps you declutter your laundry room and make use of some underutilized storage space. The finished rack tucks up against the wall when you're taking your items out of the washing machine. When the appliance's lid is closed, the rack pulls down to become a shelf or a temporary closet to hang your delicates on.
@whitneyleighmorris Vintage French bakery cooling rack turned fold-down laundry rack. 🥖♻️🧺 Because much of the time we don't need a bigger space — we just need to creatively enjoy the space we have. #smallspacesolutions #repurposeddecor #laundrytok
Once the location is set, screw two or three hooks into the wall, making sure they're all at the same height. Hang the rack's frame on the hooks to create the piece's fold-down function. If the body of the kitchen staple is too big for the hooks, you may find that hinges fastened to the wall (or the side of a cabinet) and to the cooling rack work better for this DIY. On a related note, if you're not fastening the shelf to a solid wood surface, be sure to find a wall stud to attach the hinge or hook to. Otherwise, the drywall under them will eventually crumble under the weight of the shelf, causing the piece to fall.
Working with the cording material
Twine, rattan cord, and rope are all options in terms of the types of cording you can use to attach the shelf to a laundry room wall or cabinet. The aesthetic of your decor (and the materials you already have on hand) will influence your selection. However, there are some things to keep in mind if you use rattan caning, specifically. The material might be too brittle to work with if it's dry, which is why other clever rattan hacks soak it for about half an hour.
Once it's soaked, snip the cord so that it's long enough to allow the rack to fold down next to the wall at a 90-degree angle. Afterwards, fasten one cord to each end of the shelf and to the wall. This feature, when combined with the hooks that hold the baking rack to the wall, keeps the shelf perpendicular to the surface it's attached to when it's folded out. Finally, tie a rattan cord to one end of the rack. Screw the other end of the string to the wall, checking to see if the rack's fold-down feature works smoothly. Do the same thing with the other end of the rack. Finally, construct a twist knob from scrap wood (to keep the shelf folded against the wall) and hang it above your floating shelf alternative.