Coat Rack Shelf

This is a small coat rack I made to go with the shoe bench in our mud bench area. It has 4 hooks spaced evenly across the front, and it's topped with a 1x6 red oak board. Except for the top, it's constructed from 3/4" plywood scraps.

To make the side brackets, I first made a pattern in 1/4" plywood. I then traced the pattern onto my boards, and cut the boards roughly using my jig saw. The edges were then cleaned up with a flush trim bit in my router.

I covered all the edges with wood putty to keep the plywood layers from showing through the paint.

Everything was joined together using 1-1/4" pocket screws. There was a little bit of a bow in the back, and it had to be pulled into shape using clamps before being screwed to the top.

I was painfully unlucky when it came time to hang shelf on the wall. The studs were not located where I could center the shelf, but they were close enough that I couldn't get moly or toggle bolts to work correctly. To make things worse, a sewer pipe is located ~3" away from one stud, and the builder ran a steel strap diagonally across the wall right where I intended to drive my screws.

To mount the shelf, I cut into the backside of the wall in the garage, and installed 2x4 blocking. I also pre-drilled through the steel strap before hanging the shelf using standard wood screws through its face. I filled in the screw holes using wood putty and touched-up the paint.

Everything looks good and is strongly attached to the wall. I just have a little bit of drywall work to do in the garage where nobody really cares about appearances.