Small Entryway? How to Build a DIY Coat Rack Wall with Character (Reclaimed Architectural Salvage for the Win!)
Here’s how to make a DIY coat rack wall – with the character of antique architectural reclaimed material! If you have a small entryway that needs storage – here’s the solution that worked for us: a simple DIY coat rack wall with pegs. Making this wall-mounted coat rack for our entryway solved our coat storage problems. Could it solve yours too?
Intro by Robin; Steps by Ed
Why a DIY Coat Rack Wall is our Entryway Saviour
About 16 years ago we added a second floor to our small home and reworked the main floor to make it live larger.
Our little brick house had a lot of issues. One of them is common to homes in our post-war bungalow vintage: no foyer.
Our front door opened right into the living room. In other words – it had no entryway. Sure, it had a front door, and you could come in, but then you were stranded. Standing on the hardwood with nowhere to put your coat or boots. Messy with zero storage.
Our entryway was chaotic. We threw down a rug to catch dirt and tossed our coats on a table. It was nonsense.
Here’s what we did to our small entryway first:
What you see above was step one in making our entryway functional.
We created an entryway with tile and this half-wall with cubbies.
Notice below the cubbies is a floor-level shelf. That’s where we kick off our shoes and keep them out of the way.
For the most part, it works really well. With one exception. Notice that baby in the photo above. Well, he’s over six feet tall now!
His adorable little baby coats, which hung so perfectly in his cubby, are no more. He now wears coats for giants. They don’t fit in the cubbies! Especially not when his enormous backpack is in there.
Our cubby solution is still super useful, but we needed a new coat solution.
(Because I forget that I need before photos to really show our DIY projects – this mid-renovation shot from a decade and a half ago is the best I could give you. 🤦)
Notice that blank wall? That’s what we’re going to use to our advantage with this current project.
How I Designed Our Simple DIY Coat Rack Wall
The Vision: A visually beautiful and functional coat rack wall with charm and character.
We now needed a place for our teenagers, and ourselves, to hang coats.
We could have just slapped up some hooks and called it a day, but this wall is visible from both the kitchen and our dining room. It couldn’t be merely serviceable. It had to give more than that.
Because our home was a simple, character-free post-war bungalow, I am always looking for ways to add interest and beauty. I saw this project as an opportunity. I knew I wanted to bring in a reclaimed architectural salvage element.
We use reclaimed materials a lot. Here’s just a few examples:
The first step to design: Measurements!
I took measurements of the wall where we planned to build our coat rack. It was important to me that it looked good with the front door open and closed – so I made sure I had both those measurements written down (and the height, of course).
The next step: The Search
Measurements in hand Ed and I went to our usual salvaged materials haunts.
We went with open minds. This is essential. With reclaimed materials, you need a broad vision of what you’re hoping to find. If you’re too specific in advance you may never find what you’re looking for.
We lucked out. At our very first stop, we found this:
My vision was different. To use one of the pieces as a cap to the top of a very simple wall of hooks.
And once I saw these, I knew a simple wood panelling below the hooks would complete the vision.
By a stroke of luck, they were a few inches longer than we needed!
The trim, with its curves and imperfections, gives the perfect amount of interest to a formerly boring blank wall.
I love this classic blue colour. I used this paint – it’s durable and the matte finish is gorgeous.
We built-in storage at our back door too:
How do you make a sturdy coat rack? How do I make a coat rack for an entryway?
Keep reading and we’ll show you exactly how. And, with the architectural salvage, it’s so much more simple than it looks!
How to Make a DIY Coat Rack Wall with Character for Your Entryway
Wall-Mounted Coat Rack Materials:
- Cool piece of architectural salvage that is long enough for the space you want to create your rack.
- 2×6 board, as long as the piece of salvage.
- Wooden pegs – ours are 2 1/2 inches like these affordable pegs
- Knotty Pine Edge V-Plank Tongue and Groove Boards – enough to fill the width of the entryway space
- Wood glue
- long (3″+) screws to mount the architectural salvage and 2×6
- nails and nailer
- wood filler
- Our go-to Primer
- Fusion Mineral Paint in Homestead Blue
Steps to Coat Rack DIY
For us, this usually means wedging it, propping it or sometimes even temporarily nailing it in place.
This time, I just held it up at different heights while Robin looked at it from different angles, made a decision and marked both the wall and salvage piece with pencil lines so we would know where it was going again after the prep work.
Depending on age and condition, this might mean cutting to length, sanding, scraping loose paint, cleaning, glueing nailing and otherwise making it fit for indoor living again.
You will definitely be dealing with airborne particles like lead paint, old dust and glue.
Do this work outside and wear an N95 or respirator mask. Even a great piece of cool moulding isn’t worth your health.
You know how high you want the salvage piece,; the pegboard will go right under that. Use a level, too.
Use long screws and drive them into studs for strength.
This will have the added benefit of giving the salvage piece something to rest on too, so when you anchor it to the wall it will be supported in multiple ways.
At this stage, you can also mount the salvage piece above the peg rail board if you like.
Again, use screws and try and get as many into studs as possible.
Try and use features of your salvage to hide the screws too, if you are lucky enough to have those line up where you need them (see our image below).
For us, this meant just firing a few nails into them with our favourite electric nailer.
We didn’t use construction adhesive, but if you want extra security you could. But be warned, if you ever want to remove it you will deal with a glue-based nightmare.
We worked from the end most visible in the room to the corner behind the door so that any partial boards we had to rip down would be mostly hidden.
You can see our mounted salvage piece here too – the circle cut-outs in the dental moulding allowed us spots to hide anchor screws.
Almost done!
Our salvage piece was good enough to allow us space behind it to tuck newspaper so that when we painted it, we didn’t need to be careful of the wall around all edges.
This is valuable, as cool salvage items tend to have lots of curves, nooks and crannies that you have to work the paint into.
You will definitely be doing multiple coats (see above nooks and crannies reference) so don’t worry about the drilling of the pegs and glue messing up things. You will be painting over it all.
Drill the holes slightly smaller and trial fit the pegs. You want it so they just barely fit – a little tight is much better than a little loose.
When you have the right bit size, drill all the holes as straight and level as possible.
If wood starts to split – STOP – you did not drill the hole dig enough.
Glue will likely ooze out, so wipe it up and let it dry.
If you were careful with the drilling, they should all line up nice and straight.
Ready for the final coat(s) of paint and then you are done!
It’s the curved piece at the very end of each side of the peg board. You can see it at the far left of the photo above.
Robin designed this piece to make the whole top feel more unified. She did it by tracing one of the curves of the gingerbread moulding onto paper. She did a few until she got the shape she wanted.
Then I cut the shape with a jigsaw. After that, we simply nailed it in place.
(Apologies for forgetting to photograph this step.)
Definitely a beginner DIY project – that looks professional!
This is just one of our simple DIY built-in ideas! Here’s a sampling:
- How we built in mudroom storage in a TINY space
- DIY Built in Cabinet for Basement Storage
- DIY Media Cabinet Built-in – that looks great and hides everything!
Robin and Ed are a DIY-loving couple with over 25 years of design and build experience. Also, Robin is a Nutritionist and former Registered Dietitian and Ed is an award-winning Business Educator. We share strategies for living a rich life on a DIY budget: creative money-savvy ideas for a stylish home, healthy meals and family fun. Our work has been published in the pages of Do It Yourself, Farmhouse Style and Better Homes & Gardens magazines.
Wow, I love that piece of salvage! That curved piece on the ends really does allow everything to blend, job well done. One question though, you showed the can of primer (Zinsser) but don’t talk about it?? There is a photo where it looks like you maybe “spot” primed. I would assume that if you had primed all the new wood you would not have had to use expensive color paint to triple paint everything?? Again, this was a great project love the salvage, color and wonderful functionality.
Glad you like our project, Mary! It’s suprisingly simple once you find the salvage piece. We didn’t prime the whole thing, we just primed over the knots – they tend to bleed through over time so primer helps. It doesn’t matter that much when you’re painting a dark colour – but when we were prepping it we didn’t quite know what we were going to do. 🙂
This is AMAZING!!!! Love it! <3
Yay! So glad you love it, Sarah! Thanks for your comment 🙂
Wow! It looks fantastic, great colour!
Yay! Thanks so much, Giselle! 🙂