No Floor Space for a Drying Rack? Put the Laundry on the Wall

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A drying rack can fold almost flat and still take up far too much space.

The problem appears when the laundry is actually wet. Open the rack, and suddenly there are metal legs in the walkway and shirts hanging where someone needs to pass. A surprisingly large patch of floor is now devoted to three sweaters and a pair of jeans.

Once the clothes dry, the rack folds away neatly. That is useful, but it solves the storage problem rather than the problem you had for the previous several hours.

This is where a wall-mounted drying rack makes more sense in a small space. The clothes still spread out to dry, but the rack never needs a piece of the floor.

That is a more meaningful difference than simply buying another collapsible rack. A collapsible clothes drying rack for small spaces can be wonderfully slim behind a door and exactly as awkward as the old one once opened.

A wall mounted fold out clothes drying rack changes where that temporary drying space comes from. The rack opens away from the wall, wet clothes go on it, and nothing has to stand underneath them.

The Wall Space Still Has to Work

The rack comes in 28, 40 and 47-inch widths. Even a narrow stretch of usable wall may have room for one.

The widest version is not automatically the sensible choice. A rack that opens across a doorway or stops a cabinet door from opening has simply moved the obstruction a few feet upward.

Wall mounting is the other real limitation. This type of rack needs secure installation, so it will not suit every rental or every available patch of wall.

For a small room where the drying rack repeatedly ends up underfoot, however, the important change happens while the laundry is still wet. Clothes can stay spread out for hours without a folding rack occupying the floor beneath them. Once they dry, the wall rack folds back out of the way. If the next problem is finding somewhere to deal with the dry clothes, a wall-mounted folding table provides a temporary place to fold laundry without permanently taking over the floor.