I work from home, so I spend a lot of time at home. Looking at bare walls, wondering what we can change around... much to my husband's dismay. When I get an idea in my head, I (like most wives) bug him about it until he gives in. We recently switched around our living room after a few months of pestering (and threatening to do it myself) and it looks so much better, and actually makes the room look larger.
One thing I hate though is that everything I like is so expensive! I'm a really big fan of Pinterest and DIY projects. We've done a few lately, and I'm planning a post on them soon, but this one was something I came up with all on my own.
Our coat closet in the entry is really small. And when you hang coats up, it causes the door to pop open. So, we don't use it. When guests come over, there's no quick, easy place for them to hang purses, coats, etc. I was at Hobby Lobby one day wandering around and I found an aisle of drawer knobs and coat hooks and I got a great idea! I'd get a bunch of different knobs and have the hubs mount them to a piece of stained wood, and voila, a coat rack for our guests! We even had the perfect spot behind the front door for it! I wish I had thought to take some pictures while we were making it, but... I wasn't planning on writing a DIY post until after it was all put together. But you're in luck because it was really easy.
Materials:
1 unfinished board from Menards, Home Depot, or Lowe's
Knobs or Coat hooks
Wood stain
Gloss
Drill
3/16" Drill bit
1/2" wood bit
#8 trim nails
Stud finder
Handy Husband
Process:
First we started with our board. We went to Menards and bought a 1x6x4 foot long unfinished cedar board. I chose that length so we could cut it in two and make two to hang in the space we had to use. We had some extra stain leftover from a different project (posts to come), so I knew we'd use that. It was American Walnut made by Minwax. We also had some clear polyurethane protective spray gloss, which gives the wood a nice finish and seals in the stain. Once we got the board home, my husband used a table saw to cut it to size, then sanded the edges. We wanted to stain the rough side of the cedar, so we didn't bother sanding the back or the front. He cleaned it with some isopropyl alcohol. We ended up only needing one coat of the stain, but if you do the smooth side, you may need multiple coats to get the color you want. After that dried, we sprayed the gloss coat and let that dry.
In the meantime, I had picked out my knobs from Hobby Lobby. I chose 8 (totally randomly). It worked for me, but the best bet for you is to measure the board and plot out how many you could mount and have it look right. Eight actually worked perfectly for us. They are 4 inches apart, except for the center gap, which I think worked out to 5 and change.
The next part is where you will (or maybe won't) need your handy husband. We needed to trim the knobs since we were hanging them flush against the wall. He measured them and took them to work to cut them with his fancy work tools. Once he had them cut to fit the thickness of the board, he drilled holes in the board where we wanted to mount them. He used a 3/16" drill bit to drill those. When finished, he used a 1/2" wood bit to drill into the back side of the wood, where the holes were. This gives you room for the nuts to fasten on to the knobs while enabling the board to sit flush against the wall. After that, he tightened down the knobs and it was ready to hang!
We decided where to hang them, and then realized that our studs weren't going to work, so we had to stagger them, which actually looked better anyway. We mounted them to the wall (in the studs) with #8 trim nails. Make sure you countersink them into the wood (fancy way of saying nail them further into the wood so you don't see them). If you don't have a tool to countersink them, you can use another nail, just put it head to head on the existing nails to sink them in.
Here is our finished product!
I love it! We plan to add another one a little lower once Lilly is older, so she can hang up her backpack and coat too. And she'll get to pick out her own knobs as well. It was a relatively cheap project too, with the knobs being the most expensive part. We already had most of the materials needed, and just had to buy the board and the knobs, which came out to about $40. Not too bad!
