Happy Memorial Day Weekend! I hope you are doing something fun this weekend! We are having our first pool party and we are so excited. We had our pool put in right after we moved in this winter. We’ve only used it once or twice so far, although it’s been ready and warm enough here for probably 6 weeks.
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In anticipation of our party, we knew we wanted to put up a towel rack so that there was somewhere to hang all of those wet towels. My best friend’s parents have a lake house and as soon as we saw their towel rack, we were obsessed! It is so cute and practical!
But, after hearing how difficult it was to hang, we were pretty sure we couldn’t recreate it ourselves. We loved the look but needed something a little simpler, so we scraped the reclaimed barn wood and just used a piece of lumber. It was really easy to make, and you know it’s true if I’m saying it! I think it turned out perfectly for our space!
WHAT YOU’LL NEED (everything is linked at the bottom of this post!) //
- 1 x 4 x 8 lumber
- Stain
- Cloth to apply stain
- Boat Cleats
- Tape Measure
- Drill
- Saw
- Wood Screws
- Screws for boat cleats
WHAT TO DO //
- Stain your wood in your choice of stain. I used Minwax English Chestnut because I think it’s a nice neutral brown and I use it for most of my projects! I also use microfiber cloths to apply my stain because they are super easy to use and I don’t have to wipe off the excess stain with a different cloth or brush after applying it.
- Once the stain dries, decide how you want to space your boat cleats. We decided to put them 8″ apart. It seemed like a good distance between each towel – pool towels are pretty large – but, if I had to do it again, I would probably go with either 10″ or 12″ apart. We decided to do 5 boat cleats, but you can do as many as you want!
- Once we had laid out where we wanted the boat cleats and marked where the holes would be, Alex cut the wood to be the correct length.
- Once the wood was cut, I stained the newly cut end and Alex drilled pilot holes in the wood for the boat cleats.
- He also drilled pilot holes for the wood nails where we would attach the wood to our house. You might not be able to use wood nails to attach it to your house if you have vinyl siding or brick! We have hardiplank and the wood nails worked fine!
- I also put a coat of clear matte sealant on the wood to add a little extra protection from the elements.
- Once the sealant had dried, we attached the wood to the house and then attached the boat cleats to the wood. Ta-da!
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