I’m sure we all have these cheap plastic washing baskets lying around the place…

And I wonder how many of them are broken….

I find the handles break first and if you can still manage a load of washing with it even with broken handles, the sides go next. I hate throwing them away, and after I managed to fix the dirty clothes basket that lives in the bathroom, I figured I would give fixing this basket a go, too!

Here’s what I did…

Both handles are broken. One had an attempt to fix it with string (string rots fairly quickly) and also with a bit of packing tape – also a no go-er!

See how the sides are starting to break already?

So for this side, I used a thicker piece of plastic coated wire and attached the handle back on by going over the top of the handle. When you use it, all the pressure is on the strong pieces of the basket.

ts not the best looking handle in the world, but so far none of my friends or relatives have disowned me due to an in-elegant washing basket handle… (So far, so good!)

To strengthen the sides where the crack was I put in some reinforcing with some thinner wire

And added another bit for good measure!
The wire needs to extend into the areas that are not broken and able to stand the pressure they are put under when the basket is full of wet washing.

For the missing handle – I just reconstructed a new one.

Those nasty sticky out bits got chopped off with a Stanley knife so I didn’t do any damage to my hand picking the basket up when its heavy.

Might not win me any awards for construction, decor or interior decorating, but it sure does the trick when I need to hang the washing on the line!

Score card: 
Green-ness: 5/5 for repairing something and extending its life
Frugal-ness: 5/5 for doing it for free!
Time cost: Maybe 15 minutes all up
Skill level: Basket weaving (almost like being in therapy!)
Fun-ness: Great fun to have a few extra dollar to spend on me rather than the washing!