Rick's really enjoying the idea of being a beer brewer, but his supplies take up a LOT of space. So I've been re-arranging the kitchen to accommodate his new hobby. I saw an idea in a Martha Stewart magazine Janice had, where she'd taken a towel bar and converted it into a wall mounted pot hanger. I spent a couple days hunting around ames for a towel bar that WASN'T CHROME.
NOPE.
I considered a shelf, but all the ones I found in the range I wanted to spend were WAY too short to hang our pots under and one wide enough to set our pots on top of would make half our stove unusable. I was really hoping for something around 36" and that apparently doesn't exist under $20 if you're going for a pre-fab, pre-painted shelf.
So I said screw it, I'll build my own pot hanger.
I went to Lowe's where an old man tried to tell me what I wanted to do and what I wanted to spend.
I very nearly murdered him in the lumber department.
I was looking for plant hangers - because plant hangers are meant to be end loaded, which was what I wanted to do, when old man-knows-better-than-me asked if he could help me, and I was like "yeah, I'm looking for a couple matching plant hangers that are rated for at least 12 lbs that I can run a rod between." He asked, "Oh, what are you making?" And I explained my whole pot hanging plan and he said "oh you want a shelf."
No.
No I DON'T want a shelf.
I've already LOOKED at your shelves and they don't suit my needs, space, OR budget. If I Wanted a shelf I'd be in the clearly marked SHELVING aisle and not poking around in the piddly remnants of your garden department.
I want plant hangers.
I found the plant hangers on my own while he told me all about the overpriced shelves I didn't want.
He then followed me into hardware where I was looking for drywall screws. "What do you need now?" I said, "drywall screws", "Oh, those are here." And he handed me a box of Tapcons.
Tapcon, for anyone unfamiliar with the brand, makes CONCRETE ANCHORS. They're these giant heavy duty high impact screws that you can drill into concrete. They'd be perfect if I wanted to hang all my pots and pans in a parking garage, but not only do I NOT OWN a drill capable of installing such a screw, but I imagine that when front loaded they rip out of drywall like any other inappropriate anchoring device.
Drywall screws on the other hand, have these flimsy looking plastic anchors that you drill in with the screw and they help to spread the load around because attaching things to drywall is kind of like drilling into chalk, it's a lousy anchor. But my pots aren't all that heavy and as old and cheaply done as my apartment is, I can only imagine the studs are NOT spaced according to current building codes and I can't be bothered to look for them.
Lowes didn't have S hooks in the size I wanted, but that actually turned out for the better because I got 8 hooks instead and bent out one end to hang the pots on while the other end stays permanently attached to the rod. I think we would have been knocking the S hooks off every time we grabbed a pot.
Then
we, because I apparently wasn't going to shake Carl-the-helpful, headed back to lumber so I could find the dowel rods myself while he continued to insist that what I really wanted was a shelf. After I got my dowel rod and told him, "That's everything on my list"
hint hint: you can go harass someone else now, he had the audacity to tell me "Now you be careful when you use a drill. Or let your husband do it."
What I said was "Thanks. I can handle it." What I thought was, "Old man, I will beat you to death with this dowel rod if you don't stop talking right now."
Not only am I more than capable of wielding a drill, despite it's apparently testosterone-driven-status as a power tool, but my husband-to-be
doesn't c
are about home improvement projects, organization projects or anything even remotely related to the decorating or storage needs of our apartment.
He doesn't want to plan them, he doesn't want to install them, he wants to come home and say "oh, that looks good" when they're finished.
But anyway,
after much aggravation I managed to build and install my pot hanger (ALL BY MYSELF!!) and I am quite pleased with the result!
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| Pot hanger! |
All the pots hang high enough that they don't interfere with the oven or the dishwasher opening, and you can see why a wide shelf would have been in the way.
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| Side view. The plant hangers are actually really pretty, and they even match the color of the pulls on all the cabinets and drawers (pure coincidence). I thought about staining the dowel to match our ugly laminated cupboards, but it's not worth it for so little stain and what would I do with the rest of it? I may eventually DIY a stain with coffee grounds - according to pinterest that's a thing - but I'm not shelling out six dollars for such a tiny piece of wood in such an ugly kitchen. |
