Simple DIY coat rack with shelf and railroad spikes tutorial

Do you have a narrow or awkward entryway? We certainly do. We lived with it for years as dead space, but after we moved our entryway bench that I built for the front entryway to our main entryway, we realized we could turn our dead space into a functional area that we wanted to use and that would help keep our family organized. We hatched a plan to update the entire entryway, which I’ll reveal to you soon, but for now, I want to share a tutorial for how to create this simple DIY coat rack with shelf. No fancy tools required! It is shallow and totally customizable, so it’s a great fit for narrow or awkward entryway areas.

Once you have everything, it’ll come together in a just a couple of days, depending on if you’re painting or staining it. So, what do you need for this project?

• a piece of 1 x 10 for the back
• a piece of 2 x 4 for the shelf
• stain or paint
• screws
• Forstner bits
• Wall hooks that strike your fancy

As usual, I got myself into a bit of trouble by spending too much time on Pinterest. Here’s a link to the original inspiration that caught my eye:

http://www.thewoodgraincottage.com/2013/10/11/railroad-spike-wall-hook-rack/

Just look at the beautiful wood! I wouldn’t have taken on the railroad-spike aspect of this project, except that a few days after I saw that inspiration post, our town started ripping out old railroad tracks, leaving gorgeous spikes just waiting for a new life littered all over the ground. I was doomed. 😂 I grabbed a bunch of them and, inevitably, drilling and tapping them was not nearly as easy as it sounded in the original post, since I don’t know anyone with tools that can do that! I had a lot of trouble finding a place to drill and tap the spikes. They wound up languishing in a tin bucket gathering sawdust and spiderwebs for more than 2 years! (If you’re looking to do this, you need to find a local machine shop.)

Anyway, since I didn’t have a show-stopping piece of driftwood either, I turned to Pinterest for some other inspiration photos to figure out how I was going to put our coat rack together. In the end, we went with the simple design in the first inspiration photo. Mostly because I wanted to use up scrap wood that I had and it had a slim profile, which was perfect for narrow space. 🙂

Inspiration 1: Etsy, KeoDecor

Inspiration 2: Craftaholics Anonymous

DIY Shelf and Coat Rack

Inspiration 3: Little Green Notebook

http://littlegreennotebook.com/2016/04/lucys-entry.html/

Inspiration 4: Two Purple Couches

http://twopurplecouches.com/2015/07/diy-wall-shelf-with-hooks/

As you can see there are tons of variations for this type or project, which can all be changed and tweaked and combined to suit your own tastes. It’s what I love about DIY!

So, let’s get into the tutorial.

I laid out the spikes on a piece of 1 x 10 that I had, along with some scrap pieces of 2 x 4 to test the proportions. Here’s what my idea looked like:

We measured the space, and decided on 48 inches for the length of the back piece, and 44 inches for the length of the shelf. I cut those down, sanded them, and stained them my favorite color, Special Walnut (by Minwax). While the stain was drying, I sanded the railroad spikes and put a coat of spray poly on them so no rust or dirt would get on anyone’s clothing. Tip: Put the spikes in a box to prevent overspray.

When the stain on the wood was dry, I also put on one coat of poly just to help protect it a bit. I could barely contain myself to wait a whole day for that to dry!

To secure the shelf to the back, I used these screws. (I think they’re deck screws, but I love them because they are self-tapping.) First, I marked the location on the shelf where I wanted the four screws to go, and then, to get those four locations onto the back piece, I clamped the shelf piece to the 1 x 10 in its centered location width-wise. Since I’d cut the 1 x 10 to 48 inches and the 2 x 4 to 44 inches, I had 2 inches on either side when the shelf was centered on the back. When I clamped them, I did it at the top so that I could easily transfer the pencil mark from the shelf board to the back board, like so:

Then, determine where you want the shelf to be on the back piece. I just eyeballed what I thought looked good, which was 3 and 3/8 inches down from the top for me.

Transfer the marks you made on the top of the 1 x 10 3.5 inches down onto the back of the back piece so you know where to drill. Then, clamp the shelf in place, making sure it’s 3.5 inches down from the top on both ends. No surprise here: turn the whole thing over to drill. You may need to make some piles out of scrap wood to rest the project on on both sides of the clamped shelf so that you’re drilling straight down. My sawhorses have nifty little grooves on them (see the left picture, below) that just fit a 2 x 4. I slipped the shelf in there and then propped up the other side of the back piece with some scrap wood to support the rest of the back. Drill in those screws and the shelf is attached!

Next up: more eyeballing. Decide where you want your hooks to go. First, determine how far below the shelf you want the hooks to be vertically. Then you’ll have to play with the distance and arrangement of hooks. I knew I wanted mine in a straight line across, but if you want yours staggered, figure that all out now and write it down the locations in coordinates such as “3.5 inches up from the bottom edge, 7 inches in from side,” etc. You’ll need measurements to transfer the marks to the back of the wood. I’m a sucker for symmetry, so I used the 44 inches of shelf length as the area under which I wanted my hooks centered, and then evenly distributed the hooks there.

I flipped the 1 x 10 over to the back side and made a level line across the entire back at 3.5 inches up from the bottom, the height I wanted my hooks at. Then, I marked X’s where the center of each hook would be, which was 1/2 inch above the 3.5-inch line every 7 inches.

Next comes the fun part. I wanted to countersink the heads of my screws so that my piece would lie flush against the wall. Out came the Forstner bits! I used a 1-inch Forstner bit to drill holes just deep enough for the screw heads. Then I completed each hole through the 1 x 10 by drilling with a regular bit to allow for the screw to pop through and connect with the spike.

Hey, progress seems good so far, right? You laugh. (So do I!) I had everything ready to assemble, so I took the stuff upstairs after Little Miss’s bedtime on the final night (or so I thought) to assemble while the Hubster relaxed so we could chit chat. The first railroad spike didn’t tighten. It must be a fluke. I got four spikes on and none of them tightened. Turns out the person at the machine shop and I were just not on the same page: the holes in the spikes were not deep enough. Sigh.

I took them over to my dad’s house the next day and used his hack saw to trim them down and gave it another whirl that night. With the now-weird lengths of the screws, I had to use 1-2 washers for each screw, and I had to drill extra countersink area to accommodate the washers. And even then, I had to have my hero Hubster tighten everything. I just couldn’t get it tight. It is not pretty on the back. Just check out this mess.

But finally, it was done. Ta da!

To mount it to the wall, we simply screwed it into studs right above the shelf. I knew I’d be covering the screws with decor, so I didn’t mind mounting it this way. That puppy is not going anywhere!

That’s it! Be sure to come back next week to check out the entire entryway update reveal!

If you’re need some hook-inspiration, here are some hooks, with links below, that you can buy that will take you far less time and energy to screw into your own project, but still have that great rustic vibe.

Top left – Amazon

Top right – Wayfair

Top photo Railroad spikes – Etsy (could have saved myself lots of time and money, apparently!), RusticHooksAndMore shop

Middle left – Wayfair

Middle right – Wayfair

Bottom photo Industrial wall hooks – Etsy, mjknobsandknockers shop

Bottom left – House of Antique Hardware

Bottom right – Rejuvenation