Tutorial : Hanging Purse / Diaper Bag Rack

I was going to call this Hanging Coat Rack, but lets be real, it's like 100 degrees here in Florida, and there is not a coat in sight around this house!

I made my mail holder for my office almost two years ago.  It's held up great, and we use it all of the time, but there is one problem with it.

See that purse?  It's a wee bit small to fit all of Kalia's stuff in when we're heading out.  So the mail hanger has gotten to be quite crowded with all of our various bags we keep stalked up and ready to go around these parts.  We've got a Mommy bag, a Daddy bag, a gym bag, and a beach bag that we hang regularly, along with the bjorn, Kodi's leash, and few other miscellaneous things.  The hooks on the mail holder weren't cutting it anymore.  They work just fine, we just need more.

I saw this on One Kings Lane and immediately got inspired to do something about it.

Image courtesy of One Kings Lane

This was perfect, and with some left over scrap wood, I knew I'd be in business.

Here's how I recreated my own version.

First up, I got out my scrap wood.  My dimensions wound up being pretty close to the inspiration piece, although I think mine is a little bit taller.  It is 25" x 9".  The small boxes I cut into 5" squares.

After all of my little boxes were cut, I sanded with 150 grit sandpaper.  I sanded until my arm almost fell off the edges were round and pretty.

I used these three stains I had left over from my American Wall Art I did awhile back.

I stained the back board white, and here's what my little blocks against it looked like :

After that, I taped my little blocks and stained with the white...

...then the blue...

...and finally I taped,

and applied the red stain.

When I was done, I was left with this :

I gave it all a little bit of distressing with 200 grit sandpaper, focusing on the edges.

I purchased hooks at my local home improvement store, and traced out where I wanted the holes to go....

...and then pre-drilled out the holes prior to installing the hooks.

After that, I just installed the hooks and used wood glue to apply the blocks (using my laser level to make sure they were all even), and viola :

Storage solution fixed!   I hung it in our laundry room, which is the perfect place to drop off the bags as we come in and out of the garage.  Now we've got two storing options.  If we come and go out of the front door (which we do when we jog or bike down to the Y, Publix, or the park), we've got the trusty mail holder, and now when we come and go out of the garage, we've got this!

Most of the time at least one of these bags is in the office room on the mail holder, but I put up all of the bags we had sitting on top of the washer (which drives me bonkers), and snapped a quick pic before having to go rescue Kalia from doing some sort of suicidal activity...like trying to drown herself in the toilet!

So what do you guys think?  Anyone else have a million bags hanging around, or are we the only ones that like to switch it up constantly?

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  Happy Monday!

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