Conquer Laundry Day With This Fancy Drying Rack
Do you remember during season 3 of Project Runway when Vincent completely freaked out on the production team for laundering his shirts?
He was acting like a lunatic, but listen, if someone did my laundry and did it wrong I would be upset too. Granted, I wouldn't yell at them, but I would wait until I was alone, cry about it, and hope no one ever found out (I'd also discreetly start hand washing my own clothes in the bathroom sink when everyone else was asleep). So while Vincent's outburst was over the top and rude, I get where he was coming from. I too am extremely particular about my laundry.
I air dry almost all my clothes. Things like sheets, towels, and pajamas go in the dryer, but just about everything else gets hung up to dry. It makes clothes last longer, it helps keep your workout clothes from wearing out and from stinking (heat exacerbates odors! Jolie Kerr taught me that), and it saves money. When I was growing up my mom air dried lot of items, and we'd always have sweaters laying flat to dry on top of the washer and dryer, on the dining table, and any other free flat surface. I continued this tradition when I first moved out on my own, but eventually I got a drying rack from Ikea and it was a total game changer. How had I ever managed without one?? I used my Ikea drying rack for years, but there would be times when I'd have too much laundry and not enough room on the rack, so I'd end up using my drying rack and my kitchen table, the backs of chairs, etc. It was time for an upgrade.
I discovered the Holy Grail of drying racks. The Minky Multi Dryer Indoor Drying Rack, which has a whopping 78 feet of drying space. They no longer sell the drying rack I own at Ikea, but for comparison, the rack they sell that's the most similar to the Minky has 60 feet of drying space and if it's built like mine (it appears to be) it's not half as sturdy and easy to use. (It is, however, a fraction of the price.)
The Minky rack folds and unfolds accordion style, so it's basically foolproof. My other rack was a bit like folding a map - if you knew how it went it was quick and easy, but to the unfamiliar it could end up a real mess. It's also on wheels (which are easily removable) which I find incredibly helpful, especially if you have the rack fully loaded and need to scoot it out of the way. I also love the flat net at the bottom, for delicate items like sweaters that are best laid flat to dry. Plus, living in an apartment with limited storage space, the fact that this massive drying rack can fold down into a very flat footprint and slide right into my closet is super handy.
This rack is too large to photograph anywhere in my apartment without plenty of other stuff in the shot, so consider this intentional, for scale.
The list price for this Minky drying rack is $50, which to non-laundry freaks like myself must seem utterly ridiculous. Thanks to CamelCamelCamel, though, I was able to find out that this rack gets down to around $35 on Amazon fairly often. Considering how often I use my drying rack, that's a fair price to me, so I put a price alert into the site at $35 and less than two weeks later was notified that my price point was met. I paid $34.99 for my Minky Multi Dryer and I can safely say it's worth every penny.
