Welcome to Teach Skills U Learn - Clothes Drying Rack Lift

On today's episode, I build a clothes drying rack that is operated by a manual winch so that I can lift and lower this clothes rack for drying clothes. This has been a game changer for space and opening up the area to maneuver more efficiently. We have enjoyed how this rack has enhanced the amount of clothes we can hang dry. It really hasn't increased per se, it's just that it feels more spacious. 

Also, in this episode, you will see the fails of this project and how I overcame those fails to produce a product that is quite successful. Success and failures are relative when you look at a project as a whole. For us, it was a success because it did exactly what I intended this project to do. Give me more floor space to move around our laundry area more efficiently and to create a larger rack that holds more clothes to dry. That's a win in my book. Does it look pretty? NO! But it accomplished my needs and it has better improved our way of life while doing laundry.

You can also check out my channel on YouTube:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the podcast. I am your host, Bethany Skillern, and this is Teach Skills You Learn. So it has been a long minute, and I'm deeply sorry for that. But I'm back. Um I'm back with a project today. Today I am going to uh show you a project in which I do basically from start to finish. I do uh have a you know what? I did have a video of me laying out where I was gonna do this project, what it was I was gonna do. I might be I don't I don't think I have it. I'll scour my my drive for it, but I just don't think I s I have the video. So sorry about that. But what I am going to show you are clips or I'm gonna show you uh of me making this project. And the project is this lift um for it's a clothes rack, a closed drawing rack that I put on a lift that you know raises and lowers from the ceiling so that when you're using it, you can drop it down from the ceiling. You can either leave the, you know, you hang a clothes, um, and then uh you can leave it there or you can raise it back up so it's you know out of the way. Um, but it is in front of a door that is used quite often by us. So I don't um see it being um down or lowered for an extended period of time um just because we do use this door, it goes outside to the backyard. So it's something that we do use often, so therefore the clothes rack probably would be suspended more than it would be lowered. But let's begin. And so we've got our two by four and what I'm gonna do with my two by four is I'm going to and we need two at six feet long and four. I don't know what that's gonna be yet. So let's just when you're working with a power tool like this, it's best to know how the power tool I've got my DWALT radio arm saw. Um it has a foot of twelve inches to cut wider stalk. Um I don't need um the radio or is it the arm part? Radial is the radius, so the arm part. I don't need the arm part. I'm just gonna chop away. Um, but as we go through this project, I can explain a little bit how everything kind of works. I don't want to leave you in the dark with how um power tools work, they're a great um, it's a great tool. All right, so I've marked my six feet. Now let me grab my speed square. I don't know why I'm not ready for this. Oh, I do know why, because um I just thought about maybe I should uh record this, maybe I should show you all since I haven't done a video in a while, or I haven't done a um an episode in a while. Let me uh show you how this works. So how I do my project. So speed square. Uh it has many functions and many uses. I will go over it with you eventually or in some other video, but it's just not gonna happen right now for the uh purpose of uh just getting this project done today. Um I'm just gonna go and go at it, okay? So marked it. This is how I I marked my line. I'm gonna cut so that my line is either exposed or I just shave that line off. I use the blade of my saw, my hand is off the trigger, and I'm going to use the the blade edge or the tooth of the blade to see where it's going to cut. And then I bring my line right up to the blade edge. Now that I know it's at the blade's edge, the line is. I'm gonna pull the trigger with the wood with the blade off of the wood. We want to get it to full circulation or full power, and then we begin to slowly bring the chop or chop down on allowing the blade or the teeth of the blade to do all the work. All right. So that is why we uh hold it tight up against the fence. We hold it tight up against the the foot or the floor or the the the bottom part of the saw so that we get a nice square cut. Alright, so here's one at six feet. My shop is apparently not big enough. Alright, I'm looking at this piece of wood. I don't want to get um, I want to cut so that I'm not cutting on a knot. I don't want a knot. Alright, so let me this knot is pretty pretty ugly. Six feet is here. This knot is pretty bad. Maybe if I look at maybe this is three feet, so maybe I can get three feet, three feet. Maybe this one I won't use as the long piece. Maybe I'll use this as one of my shorter pieces. This one doesn't look too bad. Got a couple knots. Let's see where these knots end up on a six-foot length. But if I start at this end, I think we'll be okay. This side of the wood isn't too bad. So let's cut this knot off. I'm holding my piece tight up against the fence. Um, let's see if we can get this to uh this apparatus really helps to um maintain that downward pressure onto because as I see again we pull the trigger af we we start chopping after the blade is at its full radius. Full power at its full power, okay? Um this is garbage. I don't know where my garbage is, so you know, such is life. Here we are. So now we slide this. We're gonna mark it six feet. All right, six feet is here, mark it with my pencil hit with a speed square. All right, so now we've got the line teeth edge to the line downward pressure again. Like I said, you want downward pressure and tight pressure against the fence. Double check, we measure and as I see after checking with my blade, I see that this had moved. Making sure we have the line exposed. If I don't have uh, you know, if I if I if I cut on the exposing the line, it's fine, you know. I uh tend to when I chop, um, I tend to go through the piece, stop the blade, and allow the blade to stop moving before I come back up. Um, you know, as you saw, this part of the piece bounced up. If I was to bring that blade back up, and if this piece had moved away and lifted up, now by me cutting or having the blade still operating and this piece now not flat against this, you might shave off and make it not square. Okay, so we're we're we want to stay as squared as possible. So now I've got two of these pieces that are at six feet uh in length. Which I might end up doing, which I think I'm gonna do with this spare piece of wood or this I'm gonna make a stopper so I get consistent cuts. I'm gonna grab a clamp. Clamp down this piece of wood. Now I have a stopper. I can get all of these cuts to be the same. Which is what I'm looking for. I don't want my piece to be on a knot. I don't want to drill into that, I don't want to be close to it. So I'm gonna cut that knot off. And there it is, four pieces at 33. So now that I have my 33 inches, let's make a just a double check. We're going to measure to make sure I did this right. And we're looking for 36 inches or three feet. Um, I do have that, which is great. This is perfect. So my inside is 33 inches, my overall is 36, making this what I want it to be. Okay, so now what we gotta do is we're gonna lay this puppy out. So let me get my handy dandy pencil, my speed square. All right, so on this end, we're going to have a piece of this on the end. This is going to be inch and a half oh shit. Let's be uh let's not be a drunken sailor here. Okay, so inch and a half. Okay. Then if I go here two feet, right? So this will be two feet on center. So now to find half of inch and a half, the center of inch and a half is three-quarters. So if I go, because three quarter plus three quarter is inch and a half. So if I go three quarter this way, right, so that puts it 23 and a quarter, and I go three-quarter this way, that puts it at 24 and 3 quarter, right? So now this is not only my center, but now I found each end of the board, right? So now we speed square this, speed square this. This is my center, so I am going to draw a line on the outside of my board at the center point, right? Okay, this is where I'll use I'm gonna use this line to, you know, screw her down. And then I'm going to draw these two lines or one side of one line. It doesn't matter however you want to do it, uh, but this is to show that your piece is gonna go right in the center, like this, right? And then you'll know where your screws or nails are gonna go. This line, you know that your piece is gonna go in between these. You can do it that way if you want. Um, so let's now we're going to do the other side. So this side is going to be inch and a half. Okay. So this is a two inch and a half is here. That's the okay. And then we're gonna go oops, we're gonna go two feet in, right? Remember, two feet is now center. It's now center, and we're gonna go um three-quarter this way, so twenty-four and three-quarter, and we're gonna go twenty um three and a quarter. Okay, speed square again. Speed square is this line is gonna go, um, I'm gonna use that as in reference to the board. Okay, and this line here is going to be the center, which I'm going to use to mark this part. Okay, nail and screw. This port is going to be the uh used to line up the two by four. All right, so now we roughly have, if I go inside to inside, so I've got um, I've got right now this is marked at 23 and a quarter from the end of this piece of wood to the um, so it's in essence it's gonna look like this. Okay. Oh Jesus, why does that not look right? Did I fuck up here? I think I fucked up here. Oh, I went, see, look at that. I went twenty-four and a half. I need to be twenty-four and three quarter. So shit the bet on that. So let's let's do it right. Good god. And I've had my cup of jaw, and I've had my cup of coffee. Alright, there we go. So now this inside dimension will be twenty-two and a quarter. So now I do I have to do math. Twenty-two and a to figure out um the next section is how many dowels are gonna be in each location. So I've got um three locations here. I've got one on the board, I got two, I got three. Um, if I take, I have twenty five dowels, well, twenty fivided by three is just not going to work. But if I do 24 divided by three, eight dowels in each section here. So what can eight dowels? Well, let's let's see if we can come up with something that looks reasonable. All right, in between here, so now we have an idea of in between these markers, it's 22 and a quarter divided by let's see here, 22 and a quarter divided by eight. Is that what we're looking at? Um, no, that's not what we're looking. Uh yes, it is like that does look like that's what we're looking at. So if I need eight in between these two lines, I want to get eight. Right? Can we go? Um

SPEAKER_02 22:00

So let's see here. How do we do this? Let's do this.

unknown 22:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

If I do one, two, seven, sixteenths. This is a half inch thick dowel, half of that's quarter. So this is going to be seven sixteenths, and this is on center. The dowel radius is a half inch, so it's quarter quarter. So now if I go another quarter. One, two, seven sixteenths. We're gonna quarter. That's center. And let's see what's here. One, two, we're looking over. So the center part is going to be three inches. So with that laid out, I'm going to draw the line, all my center cut lines, I'm gonna draw them the lower part of the frame so that um I don't think I want to center it. Because if I s I mean I could excuse me, let's see what center looks like. Three and a half, one and a half is three, a half of the half is a quarter, so three one one and three quarter is half the distance. One and three quarter. I thought I had the bit out. Here it is. So now we can see that I've mirrored this whole thing. Right? So now at these little points right here, we're just gonna drill. Using this center punch helps in making this be the guide to the point on this so it doesn't slip around. Because if you don't do a center punch, this thing is just gonna slip around on a lot. Let's grab a dowel. And we're gonna test to see if one of these dowels. See, look at that. Now, if I wanted to see how deep this is, I'll draw a line on this dowel, and what I'll do is I'll measure, I'll measure this line. Right. It's about three eighths. Could go a little bit deeper, eh? So now we've got holes on both sides.

unknown 25:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

That was a lot of fun. Took a lot of fucking arm strength. But here we are. So now we can go to assemble the entire rock. So let's let's see if we can do this. Oh actually, no, we gotta cut all of our gowels. So let's see here. We went half an inch. Let's see if we can. I think it was this line here. So this line here from here to the line to the end is a half an inch. Thirty-four inches. We're gonna go shosh under. So now we wanna go grab our pencil. 34 inches, and then we're gonna also cleat it like we did before. So 34, we're gonna go a scosh under. Okay. You're like Beth, what is a scosh? It's a great question that you ask. What is a scosh? Not a thousand percent sure what a fucking scosh is. It really was just a 16 number. That's what I went under. So I'm at 33 and 1516. I just made a cleat uh with my block of wood using a clamp and a piece of wood so I can get this consistent cuts. And we're gonna go. So this dowel ends up being at thirty-three fifteenth sixteenths, because thirty-four was the total amount that we wanted. So now we can do all twenty-four of our dowels at thirty. So now we're gonna go for assembly. So the assembly. The assembly. Um what's uh those three inch screws? I guess we're gonna go with these. Um all right. Move all this disaster out of the way. Okay, all right. So let's take this first board. Okay. Scoot down, scoot down. All right, so let's do okay. So we can do right. Do I get to see whether this works or not? I would hope so. I'm loving when something works. All right, so now to get a good clamp on the situation. Shall we? I think we shall. I think we shall. I don't know if this is long enough.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Oh, it is.

SPEAKER_04 31:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

All right, so now how we're gonna do this is we're gonna assemble this on an angle. That's how we used to do it in the cabinet shop. Right?

unknown 31:54

Oh my god, I did it. Angle. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

I know it will. I have faith in myself. Okay. So what I do is Okay. And then grab the speed square. Make sure that's pretty flush on the top. We grab the speed square and we're gonna so what I'm gonna do is gonna grab this three inch because it's twice the thickness. Thickness is inch and a half. Three. Oh God, kill me now. All right. So now another one of these boards. We're gonna rinse and repeat. Right. I want this flush to the top. Okay. I want this square. Hammer. Hammer, hammer, hammer. It's hammer time.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Okay. Right. So now we need to do it on the end. This one we should pre-drill because we're at the end here, when you're at the end of the board here, to prevent splitting or anything like that, we're gonna pre-drill. Okay, and that's what we're gonna do. Let's grab some bits and let's pre-drill. Youird, I'm so sorry. Let's pre-drill. Only because we want to prevent that split. Splitge. It's just my eye. Alright, let's put this puppy down here. Smooth this down.

SPEAKER_02 39:54

Scrub this better.

unknown 39:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Glow screw again. I can start building this on the ground.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

So now we need to do it on the end. This one we should pre-drill because we're at the end here. When you're at the end of the board here, to prevent splitting or anything like that, we're gonna pre-drill. Okay. And that's what we're gonna do. Grab some bits. And let's pre-drill. Let's pre-drill. Only because we want to prevent that split. Splittage. Ooh. I need juice real quick. Just trying to remember there's a spit on. Just by eye. All right, let's put this puppy down here. Smooth this down.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Scrub this baby.

unknown 42:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Glue and screw again. No splits. That's the way you do it. And as you see, I'm working with two different brands, but that's kind of like what life happens. I mean, I have had my DWALT for so many years that I would never even give it up for uh chance or the opportunity for just Milwaukee. No, it's not, it's not, oh shit, it's not like that for myself. It's not um, I'm not that brand specific. So while I love while I love, you know, I love them both. I love them both equally. It's like children. I love them both equally. Um I do have to say I do love them both equally. I get benefits out of um. I do get benefits out of out of the both of them, so it's I can't choose one over the other because they both serve a great purpose. So La. If I'm gonna choose out of the two from here on out, you know, it'll be based on research um and all of that jazz. Okay, so now that we have all of these together, right? Now here's the trick is to now we gotta get all of these dowels situated. I wonder if I should put this down.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Maybe I'll put this down on the ground. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

We'll see. This may work, this may not work, this may go to piss me off, but hey, what project doesn't piss a human off? Because uh it becomes you get to the point where you're at the project and you're seeing light at the uh end of the tunnel. You're seeing oh, I'm getting almost there, I'm there to almost completion. I get one extra.

SPEAKER_02 51:32

Jesus Christ. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

Is it just me? Okay, so this part of the project, I'm just going to kind of explain what I'm doing here. And it is it starts off um use the center point um pulley system where you drop a line down in the center, and then at four points you lift up uh this uh whatever it is, whether it's a base, rack, device, whatever. So you see me measuring out soon um center, the center point of three feet and the center point of six feet, and then um you see me pre-drilling these holes, and um what I'm going to use is the uh eyelet that is threaded at the bottom, and you start it off with your um pre-drilled hole, and then you use a screwdriver or long uh lever type of uh you stick it, you stick the screwdriver in the eyelet, and then you just use it like a um a T handle. And then um you see me with this cord, which is rated for 340 pounds, and so um I believe because there's four points, you can actually take that 340 pounds, and I think you can multiply it by four. Um, but don't quote me on that. That should be able to give you um over a thousand pounds worth of lifting weight, but um, you know, like I said, don't quote me on that. But nonetheless, even if that rack is 340 pounds with wet clothes on it, yeah, I mean, I I don't see that ever happening. So now you see that I've actually moved those eyelets to four points, and I have uh taken that center drop for that center point, and I have crisscrossed my lines so that this is what the formal hook, this is what it looked like. So that hook just was too big. So I'm trying to tell you that the hook was too big. So I just looped it, and then I used a crimper to crimp um at the center point, and so I'm you know, like a dumbass. I'm thinking, oh my god, you know, zip ties is gonna stop, is gonna save me from this thing um twisting in the wind. I'm such an idiot. But nonetheless, here I am trying to work out this um this method of uh this center point drop, and then trying to find these four points that's going to allow me to pick this thing up, which it picks it up, but it starts swinging in the wind because there's no um stability in in this in this system. So I have to um you know, you know, crank this thing up and down quite a few times for me to understand that this is like the worst uh theory that I, you know, could come up with uh for lifting this rack. I mean, this thing is swinging around. I'm like trying to think, well, what can I use to stabilize this? How can I stop this if I attach something to the wall? That'd be, you know, like would I then I thought, well, maybe I can drill a hole in the um next to the eyelets and drop a line down, but then what's the purpose of that? If you're gonna drop four lines in the thing so it stabilizes it. So then you gotta drill into the concrete on the floor, then you gotta drill into the ceiling. So, like, this doesn't, you know, like how am I going to make these four points um not only um carry the load, but at the crossing point, like, how do I stop this thing from, you know, it's like a teeter-totter. And then on top of that, she just swings, like she's just like twisting in the wind. So I'm sitting here thinking, thinking, thinking. Here's me thinking, hmm, the hell, what the hell? Um, so now I'm trying to, you know, understand what in the heck is going on. So thinking, thinking, thinking, and now here we are, next different day, maybe even different week. So I thought, well, with that uh four-point system, maybe I'll just do that in a dolly, like in a pulley system. So um I'm I'm like, well, if I do the poly system, fantastic, that works. Um, I got this uh corded line um that I'm like, well, I don't know, you know, I don't know if that's going to um the corded line. I mean, obviously that's gonna be uh enough, uh, you know, it's thick enough to to, I think it was three sixteenths. It's gonna be thick enough to be able to support the weight. So I'm just like, well, let's just screw this baby in. So you see me um putting in uh these pulleys um at the same uh square point of the uh where the eyelids were, right? So you see me screwing this puppy in. So um now I'm getting the the the paracord. So paracord is again rated for uh a really good amount of weights, and um from what I can remember, um don't quote me on this, but I think with the four points, whatever that weight rating is, like I said with the the line, um the uh the coated um the the the coated uh what do you call that? The coated uh wire or the coated uh I guess it is a wire. Um I was like, well, that that that can hold weight. And um with the paracord, paracord is also uh for it's rated for weight as well. And um paracord is you know known for climbers, so it holds weights depending on how thick it is, uh for boats, depending on how thick it is, it can, I mean, uh again, it's it's it's a concept, or it's it's been in in for you know hundreds of years, thousands of years probably, if you if you if you go back in time. So um I got myself paracord. Um, I feel like that would be um, you know, it would work in in in terms of um holding weight. Um you know, it's it's gonna like am I worried about the rubbing? I mean, I'm really I'm I'm not because this thing's not you know, I don't think I don't I don't see this thing going up and down, up and down a whole lot of times to where I'm gonna have to worry about it fraying or rubbing. So now you see that I've I've um marked a line with uh my um with my laser freaking laser beams. So now I have to where those um pulleys are on the lift or on the on the on the dry rack, I have to mimic that on the ceiling. So you see me laying it out. So I'm laying out um uh in the same spot that I need it uh where the uh other um pulleys are. Um and this is where I actually start to um worry that I'm gonna run out of pulleys because I only have so many pulleys that from a previous project, and then I purchased pulleys that you know I pretty much took all the pulleys from um Home Depot. So now um I actually end up taking the pulleys off of the rack, which thankfully was what I had to do because I was running out of space in the ceiling as well. So I took off the pulleys off the rack, I used it in onto the project on the ceiling, um, and I actually needed to have four pulleys, which were from the the rack, um, as the center. It was right in the middle of that three-foot length width. So um I actually was able to use that those parts, and as you saw previously, when I'm drilling into, and you can see here too, that I'm drilling into um a stud. I want to hit the stud. At least one screw I want it to hit the stud. I needed to hit the stud because I needed to be able to support the weights. So at least one screw on all of those pulleys is hitting a stud. And then the other screw is using an anchor bolt, which is weighted for rate as well, uh weight, rated for weight as well. So here I have my loops. I've made my loops and um now my my my rack is on the floor. I have my loops. I'm about to make my um I have to cut my um my uh pulley line and off my wench. I have to cut that line one more time. This is like the third time I've cut this line. Um, as you saw earlier, I took that hook off. So now I have to re um apply a um, and I think I end up reapplying. If I don't end up reapplying the hook, what do I have there? It it is it's probably some um some type of uh you know metal ring or whatever it is to to receive uh this these four lines. Now each line that goes and you see those four eyelets. So I go back to the eyelets and you can see each line is connected to the eyelets. So what I'm trying to do is I am trying to lift this rack as high to the ceiling as I can because I've realized that with the rack being on the floor, there's too much slack. So I need to lift this rack to reduce the slack so that I can um create this these eyelets um that that will um in essence give me enough space to to drop and lift this this rack so that when it's at its highest point, it's above the door, as you saw me open the door, and then at its lowest point, which I wish I could have gotten at least waist high, but because of the distance between um where the where it meets, that's you know, um that's where you know I have to uh um how do you say it? I have to um where I have to look, you know, where where I you know I wish it was at waist high instead of at um uh you know, at I think it's at maybe a little bit below shoulder height. So uh now that I've got this rack in the spot that I need it or want it, right? So now you see me kind of just going back and forth with this thing, you know, making sure that the height is right, making sure everything is the door can open. Um and again, it's just uh it's all like from here, it's all like uh you're just kind of you're doing things over and over again and and in repetition to to to ensure that it's actually working properly in the in the way that you need or want it to work. So you see me doing the final adjustments here, um, and um you know, just to get the the the height, making sure that by eye it looks like it's level. Um you know, from here it may not be, and it may not be, but it does clear the door, that's all I care about. And you see me doing the fine fine tuning of it the last time I'm up on that ladder, is I'm cutting the pair line or I'm I'm I'm I'm paracord. I'm uh cutting it. So here now you see me um lifting and lowering this um this rack so that I can uh you know ensure that it is actually working properly. You can see it clears, you can see it um um working properly. So I was able to overcome that issue that I had. Um, I was able to uh rethink how um I needed this to work, and then you see me, you know, you know, working it out. So it it took in total, like it really took probably two weeks in total, maybe it might have been uh two and a half weeks by the time I actually completed this from um I'd say from start to finish. Uh, but nonetheless, she's up now. Um she works beautifully. Uh we've been using it quite quite a bit. Um, so it's really been um a really nice thing uh or nice addition to the house in terms of it really takes uh the the unsightliness maybe of it um and and takes it out of out of sight, out of mind, lifts it up to the ceiling, is out of out of the way. You don't have to worry about bumping into it or whatever, but you can also leave it down and and dry your clothes, or what we've done is put the clothes on and then brought it back up to the ceiling and let it dry up there. I mean, heat rises, so it's not like it's gonna, you know, you know, not like it's gonna not dry up there, it's actually gonna probably maybe even dry faster up there, but um, you know, it's out of out of sight, out of mind. And so um it's not hard to drop that, you know, uh crank that wench down, um, and and drop the the rack down. It's not it's it's really not that hard to do. And because of the distance from you know from from where you saw that center where those all those lines met, all four of those chords met to the the back of the wall, you as you saw it wasn't very far, so it's not like you're cranking it forever and eternity. So it's it's it actually really worked out, uh, it's been working out very nicely for us. So um I just want to thank you again for uh joining me. Um I'm again uh sorry for the delay and how long it's taken. Uh, but uh I just uh want to impress upon you to be kind to uh one another, do uh a random act of kindness uh for a stranger or loved one, and uh just remember that we're all um in it together. And um your act of kindness added to somebody else's act of kindness, um, you know, and together that just makes a really it's a better place to live and to raise our family. So uh thanks again for joining me. This is Teach Skills You Learn, and I am your host, Bethany Skillern, and we'll see you next time.