Homemade Laundry Sorter

Pick a Place

• Identify a section of wall space in your laundry room, basement or anywhere adjacent to your washer and dryer that's around 6-feet wide and 8-feet tall. You can add a section of drywall if the area is composed of cement block. Mask off the 6- by 8-foot boundaries to define the paint area and then fill the space with a color that matches a basketball or do your favorite team the honor of using their colors on your wall. Add "backboards" by masking and painting these in with a contrasting color.

Sleuth Out Rings

• Poke around your favorite do-it-yourself warehouse store to find thick metal rings measuring at least 18 inches in circumference or scrounge around salvage yards to find cheap alternative rim materials. You can buy a couple of real basketball hoops, but why bother when carbon steel or stainless steel fire rings, for example, will give you the rigid circle you need to make your basketball laundry sorters.

Install the Hardware

• Mount a pair of bolt-on anchors to the wall where the rims are to be installed. Family members may be tossing wet towels at the rings, but they won't be doing "hang time" like the pros, so use appropriate weights of bolts and anchors to hold them securely to the walls and make certain those anchors aren't mounted so high up that the kids can't play. Secure the rims to the anchors. If you're a purist, paint the two metal pieces basketball-hoop orange.

Nothin' But Net

• Purchase or sew two long, mesh nets that open at both ends. Create the opening/closing mechanism by installing an industrial-strength zipper or rope-tied drawstring so you can release laundry from bags when time comes to wash. Secure the other end of the nets to the rings by stitching hems into place using lengths of mono filament or fishing line so the bags stay put on the rings even when jeans come flying at them. Add another element of security by bonding the hem with plastic glue to strengthen the connection.

Score Big

• Stencil in "White" and "Dark" above each hoop so nobody mistakes the two "goals." Call in the family and determine everyone's shot line so the kids get preferential treatment when time comes to score a few laundry points. Use tape on the floor and put names on the tape or you can paint in shot lines and names. Mount a pad of paper on an adjacent wall. Allocate one column to each family member. Set up an honor system: every time a family member hits "nothing but net," she gets a mark on the chart. Let the games begin!