Being Shelf-ish

 

I seem to have so little time to craft these days, but the other Saturday morning I woke up early and decided that the lawn and dishes could wait and that I wanted to make a new coat rack/shelf. I have had a really nice mission-style oak coat rack for years, but in my new (well, 10 years now) house the only place to put it was in the corner behind the front door. It worked there, but wasn't very functional as you couldn't use the hook in back in the corner and a couple winter coats blocked the door from opening all the way.

So, I had seen a couple different shelves with hooks, on Pinterest and other blogs that I thought would work better in the space. Well, I was motivated so went out to the garage to my stash of scrap wood and starting measuring and planning. After a trip to Home Depot to buy some hooks I was back to the basement and my workshop. The hardest part of the whole thing was figuring out the spacing of the hooks. I don't really know why, I wanted and odd number, so that put one in the middle and then ones on each end with the remaining two centered between. I kept trying to do all this high math dividing the space out evenly then I threw in the towel and visually spaced them in about 30 seconds. Sometimes I over think things...

The entertainment center, fireplace mantel and book cases are painted black over red so I painted the shelf to match. A little sanding to let the red paint and wood show through, then a good coat of paste wax and some elbow grease gave the piece a nice worn glow. A level, a couple black sheet rock screws and my shelf was securely affixed to the wall. The only thing I would do differently would be to use black or dark colored hooks. I thought I was going to like the brushed nickle coat hooks and that they would give it a touch of contemporary feel, but they probably stand out more than I would like. Guess I will just have to make another.