Project: Porch Shoe and Coat Rack – Part 1

Project Specifics:

Dimensions:

Project Costs and Difficulty Rating:

Project History and Detail:

The Shire has a very small entrance porch which, over the years has been generally used as a dumping ground for various bits that I haven’t wanted around the cottage (because I generally have other kinds of junk that I store inside there). However, in more recent years the porch has tuned into a shoe store.

When I say shoe store – about two pairs are mine and the entire trainer collection of my son, who I am convinced is the Imelda Marcos of Berkshire – who insists that he just cannot store them in his room as that is for other pointless tat that he picks up along his travels.

So, I decided at the end of the Summer that it was time to bring order to this chaos and build a proper shoe and coat rack and the strict edict that any shoes that didn’t fit on the rack (e.g. surplus to the capacity) will make the very short journey to the bin outside.

I did consider just buying one – but with the average cost ranging from about £200 – £600 I thought – I can make one of those – how hard could it be!? (more on that later).

As with many of my projects it started with a simple concept sketch:

Which was based upon this photo to that I found whilst looking for inspiration on the Internet:

If we ignore that the height of 2.5 meters was pure fantasy and a product of my not being able to read a tape measure correctly it turned out the rest of the measuring was spot on (well ish – again I will come onto that in a later part).

My plan was to build the frames using C-16 framing timber (because I am a cheapskate) and I planned to paint these rather than stain them so imperfections wouldn’t be a massive issue.

I wouldn’t paint a more expensive wood when you can generally get C-16 into reasonable shape with a good sand as long as it isn’t warped or full of splits. Generally speaking splits in C-16 timber aren’t a massive problem as it is a structural timber and cut to be suitable for general purpose building with medium load applied to it (for example; framing or domestic floor joists) – so more than suitable to be used as a frame for a coat and shoe rack.

The coat rack panel I planned to make out of some Pine T & G lengths of timber which I would sand back to 240g, stain and then add five coat hooks.

The main shoe rack section I planned to make out of reclaimed spruce scaffold boards (my main weapon of choice) – again sanded back to 240g and then stained.

Tools used on this project:

In the next part of this project series I will cover the construction of the rack and what it finally ended up looking like.