I made a coat rack with a difference. Actually, I made the first of these a few years ago in our old house and forgot to bring it with us! Can’t remember the inspiration for the coat rack but I know that ‘the boss’ wanted some where to hang coats etc. that also had a shelf. So, on went the thinking cap.
The concept, – take a few humble wooden hangers, cut them to length, find a nice piece of timber for a mounting board, form some sockets, drill pilot holes and a few screws later a sturdy coat rack.
Sound simple enough?
The hangers were cut so that the trouser bar was about 300mm / 1 foot long – so a good length for storage and it meant that the hanger hook and the end point of the hanger were useful places to hook coats etc.
I was surprised to find that the point where the horizontal hanging rail meets the hanger frame was only attached with a thin wire nail that, on the cut hanger, seemed to act more like a hinge than a fixing. So this was carefully removed, a larger hole drilled and countersunk through the trouser rail and a pilot hole drilled in to the hanger frame. The rail was re-attached with a brass screw.
With a much sturdier part hanger it was relatively easy to position the locations to make the sockets in the mounting board. These were cut to 5mm deep and hole drilled through so that I could secure the hanger to the mounting board with screws. Small pilot holes were drilled in to the hanger parts to prevent splitting of the relatively thin wood.
The whole thing is quite sturdy once screwed together and I’m guessing it would be even more so if I’d put a drop of super glue in to the sockets. As I said, I made one of these a few years ago and I was surprised how many coats, scarves, umbrellas, bags and other bits of stuff were on it.
I thought I’d share my inspiration – or crazy idea – depending on your point of view and so I’ve decided to make a selection of these and sell them on Etsy so if you fancy one then head over here
