DIY Drying Rack for Clothes

I’m so excited to share with you how I made the DIY drying rack in our laundry room! It was such a fun and pretty easy project.

I’ve always wanted a hidden drying rack for those few clothes I don’t want to/can’t put in the dryer. While planning our new laundry room layout, I decided to add a little pull out drawer with a drying rack to the custom washer and dryer cabinet I was already going to build.

Let me show you how I built my custom DIY drying rack!

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Materials

Oak dowels
1×2 pine boards
Drawer front (I built mine but you could also buy one if your cabinet size matches as common size)
Drawer slides
Wood glue
Brad nailer

Tools

Step 1: Measure the cabinet

The first step was to measure the opening I had available for the drawer.

First, I built the custom washer and dryer cabinet based on the actual size of our washer and dryer.

Once the cabinet was in place, I measured the exact opening that I had available for my DIY drying rack:

Then, I considered the clearance needed for the drawer slides on each side and came up with the width of the drying rack from there. I decided to make the depth of the drying rack roughly the same as the width so that it wouldn’t be too heavy.

Step 2: Cut wood to size

Next, I cut the 1x2s to size to build the frame.

materials for DIY drying rack for clothes

Step 3: Drill dowel holes

Then, I decided how many dowels I would need to add based on the distance I wanted between each dowel. I went with about 2 1/2 inches between each dowel. This allows enough room to hang clothes easily.

Once I knew how many dowels I would be including, I drilled the holes for them on the left and the right side of the drying rack. I made the holes pretty deep to make sure the dowels would be placed in them securely.

materials for a DIY drying rack for clothes

Step 4: Cut dowels to size

Then, I cut the dowels to size based on the exact length I needed them to be.

Step 5: Assemble drying rack

After that, I put the drying rack together by building a square frame using the 1x2s I cut and my brad nailer.

I used wood glue on the ends of the dowels and placed them into the holes I drilled.

Step 6: Mount drawer slides

Next, I mounted the drawer slides based on the instructions that were provided. This part was easier than I expected!

attaching drawer slides to cabinet drawer

The drawer slides I bought came with four pieces: two pieces that needed to be attached to the drying rack and two pieces that need to be attached to the cabinet surrounding it.

From there, all I had to do was slide the new drying rack into the cabinet:

I was so thrilled to see it slide right in!

Step 7: Attach drawer front

Because I wanted the drawer front to be an inset drawer front, I decided to wait to attach it to the drying rack until everything was in place.

Once the drying rack was in its final spot, I held up the drawer front to ensure an even gap between the drawer front and the cabinet face frame all around. After figuring out the perfect spot, I attached the drawer front to the drying rack!