Upcycled Chevron Wood + Duck Hook Coat Rack

Hi! I hope that you had a great weekend! We spent ours relaxing and working on a few projects outside – the weather was SO pretty!

Today I’m sharing a mini sneak peek of our mudroom .. if you missed the original post at East Coast Creative, read on!

Our goal for our upcycle project was to cost zero, and source everything from the house. We succeeded! We found a few duck hooks in my office (image in our upstairs before house tour here) and extra oak hardwood floor found in the pit (used to work on cars) in the garage.

I’ll spare you the before picture of pit (I don’t want anyone loosing their breakfast) but it was disgusting!! VERY dirty and wet. Here’s David working on his car (after cleaning it) ..

The wood was GROSS.

After letting it dry in the sun, David cut off the tongue and groove with the table saw. Then I cut them in ~20″ sections on the chop saw so they would be easier to handle. Next, using the table saw, David ripped it in half lengthwise and then turned it on the skinny end and ripped them in half lengthwise (make sure to keep your hands from the blade at all times and use a push stick when you’re close to the blade) (p.s. we recently purchased a used commercial table saw through a government liquidation site, a definite upgrade from our $15 garage sale table saw that we sold before leaving California)  

As David was cutting the boards down on the table saw I started cutting the angles.

I set the chop saw to 60 degrees, cut off the end and slide the board to the first metal stop (no measuring!) and cut again.

Since we ripped the wood down the middle, we were able to use the interior for the face of the chevron pattern. So our pieces had a front and back. We cut half with the lighter (interior) side up and for the other half we cut with the darker (exterior) side up so that each side would be an interior piece.

We counted the rows needed (12) and stacked them to count so we knew exactly the amount we would need.

We had an extra piece of 1/8″ plywood laying around, so we used that for the backing (note: 1/8″ is thin for a backer board, but since we added a frame and screwed it to the wall, we’re hoping that will prevent any potential warping)

Using wood glue, we laid out our chevron pattern (we let it dry overnight with stacks of tile on top, so it would dry flat).

Then, David cut off the excess on the table saw so that it was straight. We applied painters tape on top to cut through it, this helped prevent the wood from chipping.

Then we ripped down the remaining wood to make a frame.

We gave it a quick sand with a sanding block and attached the ducks! (prior to attaching the ducks, I cleaned them by soaking them in white vinegar and water for about 1 hour and the wiped them with a paper towel.)