We have been hanging used dishtowels in our laundry room over a clothes bar for some time. They need some provision for ventilation as they're generally damp from use. But hanging them on the clothes bar was unsightly, to put it mildly, not to mention it puts them in the way of getting to anything behind the bar. I had been thinking for some time about switching to a wire basket to store these towels until they are washed. There are many companies that make entire systems of matching wire basket storage, made for every possible mounting situation. The only problem is that after investigating these, I found the ones available locally to be quite expensive. So I decided to take a a cheaper wire basket made to just be set on a surface and convert it to a hanging model. I took a piece of wood and held it in place against the back edge of the basket and marked the location of all the vertical wires.
Then I cut single-kerf slots for all these wires. This allows this piece to sit flush with the back of the basket, which just makes it look cleaner.
I tilted my tablesaw over to 45 degrees and ripped a piece of spruce to form a french cleat.
The french cleat is screwed to the piece of pine with the slots that fit over the vertical wires.
The other side of the french cleat is mounted to the wall in the laundry room, and spacer piece is mounted below it to allow the basket to hang level. The spacer is thinner than the cleat, because it hits some tabs that stick out at the bottom of the basket I bought. You can see one of the tabs in the picture above.
I put a couple of coats of my favorite water-bourne polyurethane on all the pieces since they will be near damp towels. Here is the basket in use. This was a quick and easy project, but it really has made our laundry area look a lot less junky!
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