Hotel Style Key Rack Tutorial/DIY

I am in love with hotel style key racks! I just think that they are so pretty and about a million times better looking than the cheesy ones that we all made in middle school shop class. Surprisingly though, I couldn’t find a lot of options out there to buy one (especially if you don’t want to spend an a ton of money). You either get the option of one with 20 hooks (which is way too many for our needs), or some with only 5 or 6 hooks (which isn’t going to be quite enough) so I decided to make my own.

A few of months ago I came across a tutorial for making one that I really liked, but I wanted to do it a little differently so I thought I’d share with you all what I did to make this.

*Hey there, thanks for stopping by my website. This article is super old, so it has been archived as I no longer update it…so proceed if you wish…but it is definitely not my best work. Please stop by my home page, here, and see some of my better content. Thanks! ~Sarah*

I think that the biggest headache of this whole project was deciding what to use for my board. I didn’t want to glue together cut boards and I looked high and low for a pre-made cupboard door that would work but I didn’t find one until I had already painted this board…dang it! Isn’t that how it usually goes? *The cheapest pre-made cupboard doors that I could find were in the “As-Is” section at Ikea so make sure to take a look there if you want to go that route.* Anyway, on to the project:

I found this little board at the DI (a local thrift shop) for a buck and decided that it might work so I gave it a try. It was pretty damaged but the chalk paint that I used covered the grease stains right up and it hasn’t seeped through even days later.

I still had some left-over paint from my cedar-chest make-over and formal living room mirror make-over posts so I just used what I had on hand. Sorry if you guys are getting sick of my paint colors. It’s amazing just how far those tiny cans of chalk paint stretch. I used 3 coats of Americana Decor Chalky Finish paint in Lace followed by two dry-brushing coats of Yesteryear (same brand) to get this look. *This brand of paint dries much darker than you’d think so keep that in mind if you use Americana Decor*.

Once the paint had dried well I added some of those Sawtooth Hangers

to the back.

This was followed by deciding where I wanted the Label Holders

and I stuck them in to place. The Label Holders

are actually a scrapbooking supply so they have these little stickers on the back that are pretty helpful to get your spacing just right before you nail them in to place. *Please note that when you buy these the package says 20 pieces which is not true, they are counting for each little pre-made label in the package that you are probably going to be throwing away. There are 5 in a package.*

I couldn’t find any oil-rubbed bronze nails (which is what color our hardware is going to be throughout the house) so I got these at Hobby Lobby in the wood section and they worked great! I’ll show you what paint I used on them later.

Next came deciding what hooks to use. I really wanted some of the rounded screw in kind, but I wanted them to have a ball at the end. I hope that makes sense. I looked all over and couldn’t find any and decided that I liked these picture hangers (purchased in the frame section at Hobby Lobby) even better than just a standard screw in hook.

These hooks were then spray painted in the closest color I could find to oil rubbed bronze and then nailed in to place. They didn’t have the color that I needed at Home Depot, so here is a link if you’re looking for some Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint

For the tags I bought some cream paper and then picked a nice looking font (Script MT Bolt, size 16). My husband used the labels, that came with the label holders, as a template to cut out each new label.

To cover the nails and touch up any parts of the hooks that needed it I went with this paint

. I just used a q-tip to apply it and it did the job!

Next was to hang it on the wall and enjoy it! I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Even if it did take me forever to find everything that I needed. Hopefully I’ve saved some one out there some guess work.

In case you forgot, here is the final product again.