Door coat hanger bar
This project started with a "chin-up bar" that Rachel bought at a yard
sale. It hooks onto the door trim on the other side of the door
opening. Rachel likes to use it for doing a chin-up or two after going
for a run.
Now that it's winter, we can't use the clothesline to dry the clothes anymore. In the winters, I used hang my shirts off all the door knobs in the house after doing laundry, just to get more humidity in the house. But with two of us in the house, that isn't as practical anymore. So we started hanging the damp clothes off the chin-up bar.
But it does make it annoying to get in and out of this room. So I figured, some less ugly bar to hang the coat hangers off of, higher up, would be an improvement.
I wanted to make some hooks to screw onto the door frame to hold a dowel
as high as it could go while still allowing the coat hangers to hang off of it.
I experimented with a few different shapes, cut out of cardboard and thin plywood
before settling with the one at left.
I traced four copies of the shape on some 18 mm Baltic birch plywood.
I cut those out on the bandsaw
I used a 1" Forstner bit for the inside rounds. My 1/4" blade
in the bandsaw doesn't work on that small a radius, and I figured the
drill would do a better job of the curve anyway.
I used the first hook to transfer the hole location onto the other hooks
by putting the drill in the hole, and tapping it with a hammer so the
point of the drill would make a divot.
Sanding it smooth on my belt sander.
Then chamfering the edges on the router. I think a 1/8" (3 mm) radius
roundover bit would have been ideal, but the closest I have is a 1/4" (6 mm),
and that would have been too much. So I used a 45 degree chamfer bit instead.
Although I already had some 1" dowel to use for this, I wanted some nicer
looking dowel, and the quickest way to get that was to make it. I cut some
1"x1" stock very accurately, then used a 1/2" roundover bit to round the
four corners.
I drilled a mounting hole in the top of the bracket and added a countersink.
That way, I could screw the brackets into the tops of the door frame,
with the screws hidden. And if I have to remove them, the only
hole is in the top of the door frame, where it can't be seen.
I painted everything white, to match the existing door trim.
The holders on each end have one hook for the bar, and another
hook to hang another coathanger from.
Under eaves clothesline
The same year I made the above contraption, we have a baby in cloth diapers, which means doing laundry at least every other day. We try not to use the dryer when we can (high energy costs, and too much wear on the clothing) so we hang stuff outside whenever we can. There have been many a time running outside to take it down because it started to rain, so I came up with this setup to hang the shorter stuff under the eaves of the house. With the sun warming up the wall, hopefully, this will also work in the winter.
See also:
Making coat hooks
Curtain rod around
Hooks for gloves
Curtain rods with rings that lide past the mounts