Laundry Room Drying Rod

This past October, while we were walking home from a restaurant, we came across these bamboo poles on the side of the road for free.  There was no way I was going to pass up these babies.  They were at least 13 feet in length and 2 inches in diameter!  We picked them up and carried them home under the cover of darkness.  Fast forward four months and I finally got around to doing something with one of them.

I come from a family that whenever possible (when it wasn't raining) hung their clothes on a line outside to dry.  Sure we had a drier but it always felt nicer to have clothes dried in the fresh air.  I even have a clothes line in my tiny backyard.  The problem is, what with the rain, I really only get to use it a couple months out of the year.  I bought a drying rack from IKEA and use it in my laundry room for sweaters and other clothes not fit to throw in the drier, but I longed to hang my clothes to dry.  That's why I was so thrilled to use one of these bamboo poles as a makeshift clothes drying rod in my laundry/weight/work/storage room!

To hang the pole I put two hooks in the ceiling about 8 feet apart.  I was able to find a stud in both cases but if I couldn't I would have used a molly to screw the hooks into.

Next I held my bamboo pole up to the hooks and marked where I needed to add my chain on the poles.

I (full disclosure, from here on out when I say 'I' I really mean 'Jeff') cut two pieces of sisal rope about 18 inches long and two pieces of chain about 6 inches long.

I then wrapped the rope around the pole several times very tightly.

After securing the rope to the pole, I threaded the rope through a link in the chain and wrapped the rope several more times around the pole.

I now had the chain tied to the pole and repeated the steps for the other end of the pole.

Now the easy part!  I  hung the chain to the hooks in my ceiling.

Perfect!  Now I have a place to hang my yoga mat and wet clothes to dry!

PS.  Don't judge the weight/storage/work/laundry room.  It's not pretty but it's the most functional room in the house...

Oh, and that large pipe that's stuck through the foundation, that mitigates radon in the basement.  Just an FYI.