Tension rods are often used to hang shower curtains or window valances, but that’s just scratching the surface of their multiple uses! As it turns out, inexpensive tension rods are amazing tools that are perfect for organizing and decorating your home in a flash.
Here are 15 crazy clever ways to use tension rods around your home.
These simple pieces of hardware might seem like a boring DIY tool, but after seeing these fun ideas? You’ll see they’ve been seriously underestimated.
1. Organize cleaning supplies under the sink
The area underneath our kitchen or bathroom sinks can quickly become cluttered with cleaning supplies, sponges, or other home products. Tension rods (along with hanging baskets and totes) are a great way to de-clutter this small space. Jen Thousand Words used a small tension rod to hang up her cleaning supply bottles to leave room for other supplies.
2. Organize jewelry
Head to your local dollar store and pick up a couple of small tension rods (no, really! Just $1!) and a few metal hooks. Install the small rods and hang the hooks to help provide jewelry storage in your bathroom or bedroom. Engineer Your Space goes into detail of how to execute this clever idea in your home.
3. Create a makeshift dust ruffle for your bed
If you have a lifted bed, using the space underneath for storage is a great idea! But the thing is, once items are stored underneath, you don’t want to be able to see any of it, right? So, why not use a long, thin tension rod and a bit of fabric to create a curtain-like dust ruffle?
The blogger over at Seagrass Interiors explains how they found their tension rods for just $4.99! Check out their step-by-step instructions to find out how.
4. Creative kitchen storage
Counter space is prime-real-estate in your kitchen, so keeping it de-cluttered is always a good idea. This ingenious project might take a bit more effort, but it’s so clever and beautiful!
Swedish home website, Skona Hem, suggests using a copper tension rod (that fits from your countertop to the ceiling), some plates, and a couple of extra pieces of hardware (like plastic stoppers to hold the plates) to create this masterpiece.
5. Make a scarf rack for your closet
If you happen to like wearing scarves, get ready for your new favorite life hack! Prevent a pile up of wrinkled scarves by making a simple scarf rack in your closet with tension rods instead. This is a perfect space-saving idea that is great for small spaces behind a door.
Apartment Therapy’s Tara Bellucci shared this wonderful idea; however, she recommends adding brackets to the end of the tension rod if you’re hanging heavier scarves. Head over to her blog post for the full tutorial.
6. Quickly organize kitchen (or bathroom!) drawers
Large pull-out drawers in your kitchen or bathroom are great because they offer ample storage space, but also not-so-great because every time you open them, all of the items inside roll around and become one big jumbled mess.
Use small, cheap tension rods to create dividers inside larger drawers to help keep things organized and separated. This is a wonderful idea for your Tupperware drawer. The Passionate Penny Pincher explains how she used them in her kitchen.
7. DIY pet barrier
Pet gates for your home can be expensive when you buy them from the store or online. Plus, it’s important to make sure that you got your measurements right to make sure that they fit the doorway. Why not just use some tension rods and a bit of fabric instead?
This incredibly easy project isn’t just affordable, but it doesn’t take long to do, and it’s so much prettier than your average pet gate! Debbie Saenz over at A Creative Life created this awesome DIY using tension rods, a bit of material, and a sewing machine. Head over to her blog for the full tutorial.
8. Keep cookie sheets and cutting boards organized
Much like our kitchen drawers, our kitchen cabinets can become disorganized and cluttered before we know it. Thankfully, there’s a tension rod hack for this too! All you’ll need to do is flip them vertically for a whole new use.
Purchase small, thin tension rods from the dollar or hardware store and secure them vertically in a cabinet. Now, your cookie sheets and cutting boards are nicely organized and so much more pleasing to the eye.
9. Baby-proof your drawers
If you have little ones in the home, you know how curious they can be. Kitchen drawers are the perfect eye-level height for little curious hands to start pulling them open and getting into things that they shouldn’t. Keep infants and children safe by using a tension rod through your vertically stacked drawers to keep them securely shut.
10. Hang small herbs and houseplants
Add some greenery to your home by growing herbs and hanging small houseplants in a window that gets lots of sunshine. The easiest way to do this? Tension rods, of course! Marlane Design created this home hack using just four pieces of material – it really doesn’t get easier than that. Head over to her blog for step-by-step instructions.
11. Organize your heels
It’s okay, you can admit – you have a shoe problem. If you have a pile of shoes on your closet floor, it can be annoying frustrating to try keeping them organized. You find one shoe, then spend five minutes finding the other.
A Loyal Love created this fun idea to keep your high heels organized, and the best part? It only takes a total of 30 minutes to complete. Now, you’ll just have to find the perfect spot in your home for your new shoe wall.
12. Keep your craft area organized
Is crafting one of your favorite hobbies? This might be your new favorite organization hack. Use tension rods inside of a bookshelf to create a ribbon-holder rod. Now, you can easily see all of the colors, and they spin nicely on the rod so that you can snip off a piece with ease. Sew Many Ways goes into detail about how they organized their crafts.
13. Hide wires and other items under tables and desks
Hang tension rods underneath desks and tables and hang pretty fabric to create instant storage. This is perfect for hiding unsightly cables and wires, or just to keep things hidden from plain view. Plus, you could change out the fabric to go with the season or certain holidays.
14. Hide your cat’s litter box
We love our little feline friends, but we definitely don’t like having a stinky litter box out in plain sight. This Old House came up with a genius idea to hide their cat’s litter box in their laundry room using tension rods and a curtain. All you’ll need to do is remove the front panel of the cupboard, voila!
15. Store the lids to your pots and pans
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You’re cooking dinner, you found the pot that you need, but now, you can’t find the matching lid. So frustrating! Thankfully, there’s a tension rod hack for that. “I hung two INEXPENSIVE adjustable curtains rods ($1.77 each) on four eye hooks (.97 cents) on the insides of the cabinet doors to create a place to keep my most often used lids,” Jillee says on her blog, One Good Thing.
