Porcelain Door Knob Coat Rack

As a child, I enjoyed looking through my father's library desk.  In the bottom drawer he had a collection of stuff that was fun to handle - pun intended , as he would like to say!  In that special drawer were old hinges, knobs, skeleton keys, old locks, various screws in glass baby jars, and my favorite - an old turquoise and brown porcelain door knob!  The door handle mechanism was also in there, but it was the polished shiny by years of use, knob that held most of my attention. It was like a huge marble...oh and there was a fine collection of marbles to be found in the drawer also.  This memory came flooding back as I was drifting through some back alley antique shop in Albany and spotted a box of door knobs.
These are a few of the ones that I brought home.

Thinking about the slabs of granite that I had scavaged a while back, I decided to make a coat rack.  Yes we needed a coat rack - since our downstairs entryway did not include a coat closet...or at least not one nearby to the door.  We do have a most excellent gear room but it is on the other side of the room.  It would be great to post a gear room picture here, but it is so jammed with winter climbing gear, skis/snowboards, Christmas decorations, tools ( the garage will be built this year...hopefully! ), building supplies, golf bags..... that it looks more like an ad on Craig's List!


So instead I will show you the pile of granite scraps that I had collected.

It was fun to match the various color door knobs with the granite selections I had.

Taking out the trusty DeWALT hammer drill, I started drilling holes in the granite strips!  Jamming the door knobs into the adhesive-filled holes completed the job.  Here are a few of the racks that I made.

The onyx and white knobs have a bold look on the black and white speckled granite.

So even if the coats and hats still don't get hung up on the coat rack, it will be enjoyable to look at something made out of quality items from the days of old.

Every once in awhile someone does hang up their hat or coat instead of tossing it on the chair!