Coat Rack & Shelf

Last Friday I took care of my blog layout and designed a pretty banner (see above). So, now it's time to get down to business.
 
Saturday morning (after our weekly trip to the Halifax Farmer's Market) Chris and I went to Piercys to buy some pine boards for our coat-rack-shelf-thingy. We spent $22 on wood and then headed to the north shore to visit Chris' parents, and take advantage of his dad's workshop and tools.

Now, seeing as this is my DIY blog, I must confess that I could not have done this shelf on my own. It was really a joint project for me and Chris, with him doing anything that required a finer-woodworker's touch/extensive upper body strength. I did lots of planning, measuring, basic cutting, sanding, and applying the finish.

Chris and I did up our initial plans using Google Sketch-Up, which made it really easy to conceptualize what we'd need for materials, and gave us a clear picture of what we would be building.

Since I don't imagine anyone desires our exact plans for building this particular piece, I'll spare the detailed step-by-step and just provide a quick run-down of the process.

We cut the boards to size for the pieces of our shelf, using the table saw, radial arm saw, and the surface planer. We used the band saw and the belt sander to create the curved pieces for the shelf. We drilled pilot holes before screwing the main pieces of the shelf together. Then to fill those holes, we used small pieces of dowel cut to size on the band saw.

The coat-pegs were also done using dowel, which had been cut to length and scored on one end. We drilled holes for the 6 coat pegs, inserted them, and then wedged them open on the back so to keep them tight (+ lots of wood clue for added sticking power).

We sanded the whole thing, and rounded the edges with a router. We applied 3 coats of polyurethane finish, leaving each coat to dry before applying the next (which didn't take long in the warm weather we had on Sunday!).

We brought the coat-rack home on Monday and hung it up. And now our coats and bags hang up neatly in the hallway, rather than being strewn about the living room.
 

For more photos, you can check out my Picasa Album: