No one likes that moment when the walls come tumbling down, or in this case the coat rack. We came home from school and were hanging up our coats when all of a sudden PHOOMP! The coat rack detaches from the wall and accelerates into gravity’s clutches. 
Nothing like a pile of wet coats on the floor and holes ripped in the wall. Of course my Autistic son had to be the one that was standing there when it went down. So I spent the rest of the day trying to calm him down because he thought it was his fault and it started a meltdown.
Well, that was fun.
I sat there in between my son’s bouts of lashing out and apologizing trying to figure out what would be the best way to fix this problem. The holes were a bit big. The current coat rack was just a board that wasn’t long enough to span the space from stud to stud behind the wall. Just putting it back up wasn’t an option. 
After a couple of days the poor hamster turning my brain wheel got an idea. Longer board, totally new design and mounting. I scavenged my basement where the spare bits of boards from other projects cowered in the corner and found a 1×6 that looked hardy. I cut it to length and then decided to paint it because I didn’t have any stain that matched the cupboards.
My little brain hamster was really smart on this one. He thought I should make it match the boarder in the kitchen.
It took a while to get all the painting done. I did the bottom coat with some left-over paint from the walls and then I cut out a stencil pattern. I used craft paint to fill in the stencil. 
Admittedly I didn’t do a good as job painting as I should have, but by this time I was getting fed up with the whole mess. It had been a couple of days getting it fixed and my son had been upset about it the whole time.
The circus of getting it up on the wall was a bit frustrating. The cordless drill I was using kept stripping out the heads on the screws. I tried adjusting the clutch but it didn’t seem to make a difference.
I managed to get it up and it should stay this time. It’s held up by six 2 inch screws in the studs. 
I have to say it doesn’t look to bad and my son is no longer upset. So all is well and good in the world.
adriana pridemore 