The laundry hamper in our bedroom has been on its last legs for a while. It’s the one we got when we were newlyweds, so it’s lasted a good 10 years. But over the last year, I can’t count how many times Mike has had to fix something or other on it and finally I had enough. I started looking online for new hampers and loved the look of wire hampers…but not the price tag that came along with them. While browsing, I stumbled across a DIY for a wire hamper on Apartment Therapy and thought that would probably be our cheapest way to get a wire hamper. I showed it to Mike, who happened to have a wood round just sitting in the garage and my brother-in-law had a roll of welded wire fencing that he didn’t need. We also used the laundry bag from our old hamper, so our new hamper ended up only costing us the price of the wheels and some screws & washers!
Our process was pretty similar to what they did over on Apartment Therapy, with just a couple minor changes. Mike thought the top of the hamper should be reinforced with extra wire to make it more sturdy so that the edges wouldn’t start folding in with the weight of clothes in the bag pulling it down. We also didn’t stain or polyurethane our wood – just left it natural. This really is a super quick and easy diy. We had it done in under a half hour and that was with taking step photos along the way.
What you need:
- Wood Round
- Welded Wire*
- Screws
- Washers
- Caster Wheels
- 10 gage wire (we used wire for hanging drop ceilings) – long enough to wrap around the hamper
- Laundry Bag
- Screw Driver
- Pliers
- Wire Cutter
*Our welded wire has 2″x3″ “squares”, but you can use any size you want…I liked the look of the bigger spaces on the wire, although it did seem like the welded wire rolls with smaller squares were a little cheaper at the home improvement stores – mine was free though, so I took what I could get and was happy it happened to have larger “squares”.
How to do it:
Unroll a length of the welded wire and wrap the wire around the wood round to see how much you will need. Cut the length of the wire using the wire cutters, making sure to leave a little a bit of extra that will overlap the opposite side. Make sure the wood round is arranged on the wire so that there is one square length that hangs below the bottom of the wood round (this will get wrapped under the bottom) and wrap the wire securely around the wood, twisting the cut wire around the opposite side, securing the sides together. Snip any extra wire and make sure you don’t have any sharp ends sticking out. Cut the bottom of every other square of the wire that overhangs at the bottom of the wood round, forming little squares that line the bottom of the wood (see photo above). Wrap the squares down around the wood round. Screw a washer and screw into the squares. Attach the wheels. Wrap the 10 gage wire around the top of the hamper, weaving in and out between the squares. Once all the way around, twist the ends together to secure and snip the wire. Place your laundry bag inside the hamper and get going on that laundry pile!
I’m loving our new hamper and couldn’t be happier to finally have one that isn’t caving in on itself! And now it’s on to redoing the laundry room! 🙂
-Manda