DIY pull out clothes rack

We all have problems with arranging clothes in our closets and the most difficult, by our experience, are pants. Classic storage organizers with hangers are proven to be very difficult to manage and it’s almost impossible to keep your pants perfectly ironed on a classic hanger. The solution to this problem is this fantastic DIY pull out clothes rack.

There is no more pushing hangers from one side to another and there is no more collecting fallen clothes in the bottom of your closet. You just pull out the clothes rack and all your pants are within your grasp.

Don’t worry, this DIY pull out clothes rack can be easily made by everybody with just basic woodworking skills.

Required materials :

You probably noticed that we didn’t put the wood on the material list and that’s because you can use basically what ever you can find in your garage. If you want to use MDF like us, then it’s best that you take your measurements in the shop and ask them to cut it. That’s because MDF is very difficult to cut with regular tools and you need to put veneers on the place of the cut! Don’t worry, if you don’t have MDF or you don’t work with it, you can make even better pull out rack with hardwood and paint it to your choice.

Let’s get started with the project then. First of all, measure the dimensions of the space where you want to fit your pull out clothes rack. Measure from side to side and the depth. When you’ve measured your space be sure to take off 1 inch from your width because you will need to put one extra side panel to allow your pull put rack to function properly. The 1 inch thick panel must be installed on the same side as the door of your closet. You can see the extra side panel in the picture below.

The shape of your panels is completely up to you. You can make them curvy using a jigsaw or you can leave them square shaped, it’s really a question of design rather than functionality. After you made your panels, you need to drill the holes for dowels. Divide the length of the side panels by 6 and transfer this measurement onto the side panels so that you can drill the holes which will hold your dowels. Use a wood Forstner bit (same size as your dowel rods) to drill five holes 1/5 inch (5 mm) deep on both side panels. These holes are for mounting the dowels and they will hold your clothes. Don’t drill the holes in a straight line, but rather at a slight angle so that each hole is higher than the previous hole. In that way it will be easier to see at a glance what is on the rack when you pull it out. You can see how to arrange the holes in the picture below.

Don’t forget to cut your dowel rods at the appropriate length. You will find out the needed length by measuring the length of your front panel and adding 2/5 inch (1 cm) to that size. The cutting and preparation is now finished and we can start assembling our DIY pull out clothes rack. First put some wood glue on each dowel hole and then assemble front and back panel on one side panel only. Use two wood screws on each side and be sure to first drill a smaller hole than the screws. You always need to drill a smaller hole first in order to avoid wood cracking.

Now comes the tricky part and it’s best to ask a second pair of hands to help you. You need to put the dowel rods in the holes on the assembled piece and then you need to take the second side panel and put the rods on the matching holes also. When all your dowels are in place, screw the second side panel in.

Your DIY pull out clothes rack is now finished and all now you can sand it and paint it to your choice. Sanding is much easier with an random orbit sander, be sure to check out our Guide to orbital sanders. After painting you need to mount the drawer runners on each side of the rack and inside the closet.

Now take the rack and slide it in the closet. Remember that you need to slightly lift the front part in order to get the runners inside. Now when your DIY pull out clothes rack is installed, you can start putting your clothes on it and find out how cool it really is!

If you liked this project be sure to check out our collection of DIY projects here!