Quite some time ago I made a very similar coat rack for the area in our basement where we enter from the garage. I think I wrote a post about it back then, but I am not going to take the time to dig back and look for it.
The other day was talking about how she would like to have a coat rack for our bedroom closet. She asked if I could make another one to put up in there and since I love playing with power tools I was more than happy to oblige.
I am not that creative, so most of my designs are pretty industrial in nature. I also do not have a router so this means most of my work is very angular with sharp edges and clean lines. My good friend's dad has a custom cabinet shop, so I could go there to make all of my stuff, but sometimes the drive isn't worth it and I enjoy working in my own space.
I went to the local home improvement store and picked up the lumber I needed. This was the same day we picked up the cement blocks for our makeshift shelves I wrote about a week or two ago. I only needed to make one cut on each board to get them down to the size I needed for the coat rack.
It is a pretty easy design with just two 1 x 3" boards and a 1 x 2" board.
I ran some glue down the edge of one of the 1 x 3's and then clamped them together to hold them while I used my dad's brad gun to put tack them together.
Once everything is dried and held together well, it is simply a matter of placing the 1 x 2 into the right angle created by the two 1 x 3's.
I don't attach anything with the 1 x 2 yet because I need to allow for my "pegs" that the coats will hang on. I simply line everything up and make the marks where I want my four "pegs" to go.
Then I need to decide how low on the board I want the "pegs" to be and I make my marks to drill my hole. If I had a drill press it would come in really handy at this point to make sure the holes I drill are straight, but I don't have one, so I just have to freehand it.
With the holes drilled through both the 1 x 2 and the backing 1 x 3, I now need to drill out a larger hole in the 1 x 3 to make a cavity for the nut that will hold the "peg". This is why I didn't attach the 1 x 2 in that earlier step.
I put a larger wood bit in my drill and again freehand the holes.
I obviously kind of suck freehanding the larger holes. It looks like I might be visually impaired or something. It is okay, because I have my Dremel rotary tool to make everything all better.
As you can see in the picture below, using the sandpaper disc made everything all better!
It is at this point that I run some glue along the 1 x 3 backer and attach the 1 x 2 to it making sure that I line up the holes. I clamp it down for a couple of minutes and run some more brads into it to hold it secure while the glue dries.
Wood glue is pretty amazing these days. My friend who knows as much about woodworking as anyone I know told me once: If you take two boards and glue them together edge to edge, wait for it to dry and then try to break them apart, you will probably break the wood down the grain before you break the bond the glue made. That is pretty impressive.
Like I said, I am pretty industrial so my "pegs" as I have been calling them are actually just carriage bolts with lock nuts and washers on the back and regular nuts and washers on the front.
You can see creating that cavity in the back for the lock washer and nut will allow the coat rack to lay flat against the wall.
Finally, we have the finished product. I need to give it a good coat of stain or paint (probably something I should have done before I put the "pegs" in).
It is going to look really nice hanging in the closet and it will serve its function very well.
Thanks for stopping in! All pictures were taken by yours truly!