So today I had planned on writing part 3 of our honeymoon trip, but not only did I not have time, I finally finished a little side project I've been working on.

I made a coat rack.

Basically, I've been wanting to make one for a while. At my mom's house we had one that came from my grandparents house. It was a wood shaker peg kinda deal. What I really wanted to do was make one that would look a little more modern, but give me a place to hang my coat during the winter. Especially when I knew i'd be leaving again soon.

So I had some spare quality wood left from our work on the pilasters, and I found some hooks at a local store called Menards that I liked. Now I already knew the stain, it was going to be Minwax Special Walnut 224. Jen's quite fond of that color, and I like it too.

So pretty much all I had to do was figure out the dimensions. I cut the board to 3' based on the available space, and then inset the hooks 4" from each end. That left 9 5/16" between each hook in the center. Beyond that it was a pretty simple matter of borrowing my neighbor Tim's router (thanks Tim) and using a 3/8" round over I had along the edges. Also I drilled 5/16" recessed holes on the ends for the screws and used some mushroom caps to hide the screw heads.

That's pretty much it.....oh yeah, and I did one coat of varnish just for the heck of it. Just a stupid little thing an 8th grader could have done.

PS. Lesson learned....denatured alcohol is no substitute for mineral spirits for cleaning up....trust me.