Since writing for TMK I have developed a new approach to life…namely if I can make it and/or photograph it then I must do so, and then blog it. With this in mind, following the installation of new windows and doors throughout the house, I was faced with having too many keys on my tiny key rack.. Not only do have I my own, but those of neighbours and friends and a few random sets of dubious origin but I know I will discover what they are for once I have thrown them out.
I looked on the line for a key rack, or box… and then had the TMK moment and consulted Pinterest. You will see some of the ideas I had on our ‘Make It’ board, if you are interested, and, with the idea of making a framed blackboard for useful reminders with a wooden frame surrounded by cup hooks for the keys, I headed for Homebase.
Being a photographer, you would think I have lots of old wooden photo frames lying about, but not at all. I looked for something plain with a nice wide wooden frame, and the cheapest I could find, that was suitable, was £6.99. Since most of the racks I had looked at on line started at £12.99 I was feeling confident that this was a good plan. Then I headed over to find the backboard paint and the cup hooks…. At £17 I was feeling less excited about this plan and had a rethink. The key sized hooks in Homebase are £7.99…
Not to be deterred I then went back to the home furnishings and looked to see what I could find that was wooden and would hang on the wall, without paint etc. To my delight I found a square wooden ornament at £4.99 (there was a posher looking one for £7.99 but I was going to deface it anyway!). I even managed to find one reduced to £3.99 because it was scratched!
This is a piece of hardwood, and therefore it is hard. To get the cup hooks to go into it I was going to have to drill small starter holes before I could screw them in. This involves getting the drill out and finding the right size drill bit…. suddenly all too difficult, so I returned the cup hooks to the hooks department and headed for the nails department. Decorative nails don’t really exist but I found some bronze effect ones that matched the colour of the wood (ignoring the fact that they were described at pins for some soft stuff) and selected a packet of those instead. I found a heavy duty picture hanger so that I could hang up the finished item and headed for the check out. To my horror, at the till was an ex boyfriend and his wife, so I pretended to look at lighting until they had left the store (of course there was the inevitable moment when they discovered that what they were buying didn’t have a price and so I had to look at light bulbs too).
Eventually back home I found my camera to photograph the whole ‘Make It’ process for you, laid out my tools and set about constructing the key rack. I attached the picture hanger to the back, adding another scratch to the front, and had a cuppa while I admired my efforts so far… You will note the extra hole here, as I had put the hanger on upside down to start with.
As the block is square I decided to arrange nine nails symmetrically on the face of the ornament. After twenty minutes of searching I found a tape measure and set about marking out where the nails would go…
Here, ladies and gentlemen, is where I realised my first epic fail. No matter where I tried to arrange nine nails there was always a hole in the block to spoil the pattern. Not to be deterred, and unable to take it back now that had put a hook on the back, I settled on a random pattern of nails, wherever they would go. And here I realised epic fail number two… the wood is HARD wood and the nails are not so hard…
Out of a packet of some 50 nails I managed to get six in without bending them too much and getting them sit ‘sort of straight’. I hung a key to test my new rack…
… and set about attaching the hole thing to the wall. You will note my spelling there. It is intentional. As I drilled into the wall to affix a screw and raw plug as a hanger (it’s a quite a heavy rack!) a huge lump of plaster fell off and a large section of my utility room landed on the work top….
Nailed it!!!
Penny x
