Day 18: Building is exercise, right?

I really hope everyone would agree that building is exercise, because my arms DEFINITELY agree. I've been trying to figure out a way to get all of our too small/too big/too warm/too cold coats out of our TEENY TINY coat closet without cluttering up the mudroom too much.  For free. Which, considering we're almost done finishing our basement, is actually not as hard as you would think.

So I went out to the shed (where the last of the wood is, since drywall guys are coming tomorrow! Yippee!) and grabbed a 2x4 about the length I wanted and 2 smaller 2x4s that were pretty close to the same length. Then I grabbed a 2x2 (which fits a coat hanger almost exactly...the hanger won't go ALL the way down, but for FREE who's complaining?) that was a little long. I grabbed MY jigsaw (not my husband's!) and MY drill (he hates it!) and headed out to the garage. Earlier today, while Chubby Bubby was still sitting nicely in his car seat in the van and I had the door open, I had cleaned off an old broken down bookshelf so that we can take it to the dump and use the spot that it had been taking up for my brilliant idea. ;) I used my jigsaw to cut the short 2x4s to the same length and then started drilling...which is about where my brilliant idea started falling apart. The only screws I have on hand are 2" drywall screws. Which is great if you're doing drywall, but not so great when you're trying to attach 2x4s to each other. A 2x4 is actually 1 1/2" (for some unknown reason that no one's ever been able to explain to me), so they go through, but it only goes about 1/2" into the other 2x4. So I grabbed some nails, which helped a lot. Until I got to the 2x2. I can only put one in, which isn't terribly sturdy. And now it spins. And I'm too short to effectively attach it to the wall!

 So despite my grand ideas, it isn't attached to the wall yet. But I got the shelf clear, which I've been thinking about for WEEKS, and I started getting the rack put together at least. Hopefully when the Hubs gets home, he can help me figure out how to make it sturdier and get it attached.  And I'll remember to take pictures for tomorrow's post. ;)