How to Create a Simple Coat Rack for your Entryway

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I am always jealous of the houses with large foyers that can be styled with console tables and/or benches, since my house has a nonexistent foyer that only offers a jam packed coat closet.  I wanted to dress up our front entrance, which opens into our hallway and has no room for a  piece of furniture and little room for styling.  I looked through home magazines and scoured Pinterest for inspiration.  I decided on adding a wall-mounted coat rack for guests and a family photo, similar to the looks I found HERE and HERE.

Front door/hallway

I looked around at several of my favorite local home decor and big box stores for a ready made coat rack, but they were all either too expensive or not the style I was looking for, so I decided to make my own!  We had plenty of scrap wood in the basement that I could use for the background and I also had leftover white paint from another project, so all I needed to buy were the hooks.  I first looked at World Market, which had beautiful ones; they were just a little fancier than what I wanted. So, I headed to my local Home Depot, which had a surprisingly large selection of hooks, and I settled on three of these in a satin nickle finish.

Once I found the hooks, I had to decide what size and length I wanted the rack to be, so I measured the area behind the door.  After digging through our scrap wood bin, I decided on a 1 x 4 piece that was 30 inches long, so I did not even have to cut it!  I sanded the front, back, and edges by hand with a sanding block, just to make sure the wood was free of any rough spots before I painted it. I primed it with Kilz, then used two coats of  Rust -Oleum Ultra Cover in Gloss White, letting it dry in between the coats.

Once the board was dry, I measured and spaced out where I wanted to place the hooks. Then, I marked the screw holes using a pencil and pre-drilled the screw holes for the hooks. After attaching the hooks using the hardware that came with them, I was ready to hang it on the wall. We made sure we drilled into the studs to hang it, since it would be holding coats and purses, which is why my screws are not centered on the wood (so don't look too closely).  It turned out better than I imagined! Now when guests come, they have somewhere to hang their coats, instead of throwing them on the guest bed (since there is no room in our packed hall closet!).

The finished product!

I was able to make my own DIY coat rack in an afternoon and only spent about $10!  What have you made with your scrap wood?