Nordic Ski Coat Rack
Hello everyone! Welcome back to my corner of the web, and a very Happy New Year to you! I hope you all had splendid holiday celebrations with family and friends. Ours was wonderful, to say the least, and I am ever so grateful. I also got the majority of my Christmas décor taken down and put away, which is significantly early for me. I usually leave it up for a couple more weeks, to help lend a sparkle to the cold, dark Alaskan January. But this year, I was ready. I think it’s a combination of anticipating a family trip to California in just one month (hello sunshine), and knowing we will be moving down the street later this summer, I just got this itch to start packing and organizing. So why not start with Christmas décor?
We have a busy year in store, and with moving, purging and packing, organizing, not to mention some larger projects of furniture restoration and home renovation. I’m not going to promise two posts every week, but I will keep things coming! What a delight and joy it has been sharing this journey with you, hearing how it inspires and touches lives, and I am excited for what this year will hold.
Today I’m excited to share with you a Christmas gift my husband and I made together for my brother. It was another one of those ideas I had floating around in my head for over a year, but hadn’t come up with what I needed until recently.
We grew up cross-country skiing in my family. My parents would ski, and before we were old enough to, our dog would be hooked up to a harness sled-dog style and pull my brother and I behind in a sled. I remember some wild rides. Soon we got too big and learned to ski ourselves. As with any sport, adventure ensued. One Christmas we were out looking for a Christmas tree. The snow was probably 3-4 feet deep that year, and my ski boot (the old-fashioned three-holed binding) broke. Well, we found a tree, and I made it home to tell about it, but it was a very long adventure.
My brother joined the Junior Nordic ski club in middle school. Those without a doubt became his people and are his loyal friends to this day. He continued to ski through high school and after college coached local high school teams, bringing them to the state championship. Skiing is one of his passions.
So, I had this idea, to turn a vintage wooden Nordic ski into a coat rack. I found this pair of Norwegian-made vintage wooden skis at thrift store in November and knew they would be just perfect. I found this set of inexpensive hooks at The Home Depot.
I wanted more of a gold tint to them to match the wood and gold binding. So I took the black hooks and did a light messy paint job with gold acrylic paint on the hooks. It worked perfectly.
My dear husband helped me with attaching the hooks. I measured out equal increments on both sides of the binding to put three hooks on each side. Then I held the little hook, as my husband drilled a small hole in each screw opening. Then he hand screwed small gold screws to attach each hook (the screws in the package were way too long).
I love the Made in Norway. My brother spent a week in the Norway this summer making it all the more special.
It was a trick to try and find a place to do a photo shoot that had a long enough wall and proper light. I found the wall, but the light was lacking, so sorry about that. (Alaska in December with minimal photography equipment is tricky!)
I do have an extra ski available to make another ski coat rack for anyone interested locally, only. After I made this I looked up on Pinterest to see if I had an original idea, it wasn’t. On Etsy they run about $100. The other ski does have a crack from the “made in Norway” to the bottom. That would be taken into consideration for the price. Contact me if you’re interested in purchasing a ski coat rack.
Thanks for stopping by!
Blessings,
Cheryl
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