Coat racks are a fantastically practical solution to the problem concerning efficient and space-saving coat storage. There are many different types of coat racks, and can be used at home, or in public spaces, like the office, as well as other places where several coats will be cavorting together simultaneously. Unless the places you frequent are posh enough to have a coat room with a coat check girl, in which case a coat rack is rather unnecessary. At any rate, racks are certainly more practical than this scenario which is far too common at parties: “Let’s just pile all of the coats onto the bed in a darkened room, and when at the end of the party and everyone is completely knackered and tipsy, they can all go home with the wrong coat.” If the host is lucky, a coat or two might even get left behind.
One school of thought concerning racks is those that are wall-mounted, which would be styled as perhaps several hooks optimum for coat hangery on a single strip of wood that would be fastened into the wall. A close cousin to the wall-mounted rack is the individual wall-mounted hook, but if you’re going to be dealing with coats in high volume, your landlord might not appreciate you maiming his walls. It would be wise to make sure that the rack is indeed fastened securely into the wall; as coats are sometimes bulky, they can accordingly be quite heavy. While no one wants to send their coat home with the wrong person while drunk, even less so would you want to be sued for emotional trauma and perhaps personal injury when the coat rack fails and your massive parka attacks your office mate. We live in a litigious society, people; you need to protect yourself.
If you aren’t into any wall maimery and don’t wish to pin your hopes of not getting sued onto your dubitable skill with power tools and drywall anchors, an over-the-door rack might be the thing for you. No screws or real intelligence required other than being able to not slam your fingers in said door upon coat retrieval on a semi-regular basis, the over-the-door rack features one or two hooks which will go over the top of the door, and usually 3 to 5 hooks which will hang down for coat hanging. The weight of the rack is supported by the door, which unless you live in a cardboard dwelling, should be sufficient. Just watch out for the afore-mentioned finger-in-door issue.
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