Door Knob Coat Rack

Moving into your first unfurnished place can be challenging - it sure was for us! Fortunately, we are trying to learn as much as we can about carpentry and building, and are interested in creating a home full of recycled and reclaimed beauty.

When last in Portland I went to the ReBuilding Center and got myself the part of a door jamb that included some hardware and holes from past doors. I dug through hundreds of old doorknobs looking for eight that were different shapes and colors.


I used a circular saw to make a diagonal cut through the jamb, dividing it so that one piece was about 2/5 and the other the 3/5. Initially I was going to make one of them 3ft and one 2ft, but there was such amazing hardware and distressing on the ends and throughout that I decided just to use the whole thing.


I set the doorknobs evenly across the center of the jamb and screwed them on. I had to drill pilot holes and then hand-screw them because the phillips bit on my drill is not long enough to get around the curve of the knob.


I opted to mount them on the wall behind the front door using plastic wall mounts because the studs were hard to locate. I chose to hang them off center from one another so that the knobs were staggered for better accessibility.

I am very pleased with how the project turned out. The wall next to the bookcase was very blank, and its great to have our things up off of the floor!