We wanted to spend as little as possible (hopefully nothing at all) since the point of us making and not buying one was to save money. We gathered some scrap wood around the house and in Gong Gong's work shed and discussed how we can work with what we have. After some measuring and drawing of lines, B cut a few pieces of wood. I tried to help... but I'm so slow (plus, weak arms) and not really good at it so it's best to leave it to him.
We borrowed Gong Gong's "office desk" and tools to cut up the wood. After a few tries and wrong angles, we finally decided on this pretty sturdy base! Since the coats are going to be heavy, the base is really important to make sure the hanger doesn't fall over. The original plan was to drill each piece of base wood into the stand at each corner but getting the angle right was killing B and taking too much time so we changed our minds!
After we nailed in the arms and hooks (they were just lying around) of the coat hanger, we started sanding the wood down because I wanted to paint it a different colour to make it look nicer. It was my first time using this particular sander and it made my arms ache so much! It's really heavy and vibrates really roughly so I had to grip on really tight. Plus it was so loud I had to wear earmuffs! Really proud to produce a nicely sanded coat hanger but I'm currently nursing an aching arm.
Day 3 of working on it... We went to Bunnings Warehouse to get some wood putty to fill in the gaps and imperfections, and some super glue for wood to make sure the arms will not just fall off in a few days. We spent a total of $10 there but this still makes our coat hanger worth it since purchasing one at Freedom would cost us at least $80!
Again, my first time using a filler and I'm not exactly sure if I'm doing it right. YouTube tutorials were not exactly helpful as the gaps are different but I guess if I don't see any holes it should be fine?
So happy that we are nearing the end! After letting the putty dry in the sun to speed things up a bit, I painted the coat hanger with a paint undercoat. Also borrowed this from Gong Gong who was doing a bit of painting around the house. This should help the paint colour appear more uniform on our coat hanger!
At this point, I stood up and knocked my head on the top piece of wood with a fresh coat of paint so... I got paint on my hair. It was a pretty big patch but thankfully Por Por used some acetone to remove it. Right now it looks like I have white flakes on my hair... Oh well! It will all be worth it!
After applying a coat of white paint on the coat hanger, its complete! I wanted to turn it into a cute little mini road sign on the front side of the hanger but I don't think I should spend more money on 2 more tins of paint cuz it's really expensive.
Overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out although it wasn't quite like what I imagined it to be! I'm so glad we managed to recycle some old wood instead of going out to get a brand new coat hanger :) save money, save trees.
Our coat hanger is designed to hang on only one side of the top piece because I really wanted a neater look that would "hide" the hooks. I'm so glad it hangs really well despite the uneven weight distribution.
I can't wait to start on our next project already :) perhaps, a bedside table?
No comments:
Post a Comment