Issues → March/April 2008 → Home & Garden → Do-It-Yourself Home Projects →

Do-It-Yourself: Trellis Coat Rack

by Ian Aldrich

Designer Matthew Mead has a flair for creating home ideas that recast familiar items in inventive ways. Consider the garden trellis. In his Concord, New Hampshire-area home, he's used them as headboards and towel racks, and most recently in the entryway. "Because its intended purpose is for vines to hang over it," he explains, "I figured why not try it as a rack for jackets, hats, and mittens?"

PROCESS:

Mead chose a simple pine trellis about 5 feet tall, which he painted with a mossy-gray semigloss latex. "I wanted a paint with some sheen, to give the rack protection from the jackets," he says. He added a 6x6-inch mirror, attaching it to the trellis with epoxy glue (double-sided carpet tape works fine, too).

For the hangers, he used white porcelain doorknobs -- "you can get a bag of them at a flea market for five bucks" -- which he screwed into the lattice.

The most involved part of the project was mounting the rack. Mead hand-cut 2-inch dowels and screwed them into the back of the rack. "I wanted some light behind the trellis," he notes, "to make it look three-dimensional."

Next, he predrilled the wall holes; because the rack is light, only a few of the mounting screws had to hit studs. Then he inserted 3-inch Sheetrock screws through the areas of the trellis where he had attached his wall spacers.

COST:

Less than $150 (trellis $35 to $100)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST?

"I think the whole reinvented outside/inside thing works really well," says Mead.

RESOURCES:

Matthew Mead Productions, Boscawen, NH. 603-753-4185;matthewmeadstyle.com