While coats racks are often a temporary solution to a permanent problem, coat stands can become part of the internal landscape of your home, as they are considered a piece of furniture in themselves with the ultimate functionality of a coat storage and organization device as well. A coat stand is a free-standing pole which is stabilized at the bottom by some style of base, with hooks at the top for coat hanging. These are more practical for homes and small offices, as a coat stand can only hold so many coats without becoming ridiculously cluttered and self-defeating or dangerously unstable and wobbly.
As they are considered a piece of furniture, coat stands come in as many styles as does furniture itself. There are wooden ones in several different shades of stain such as pine, oak, cherry, and walnut; metal ones in brushed nickel, brass-tones, gold-toned, or wrought iron; plastic ones configured into any shape imaginable; wooden ones painted to look like metal; metal ones finished to look like wood; wood ones that look more like plastic as they are painted in colours never seen in nature; you get the idea. The functionality of the coat stand has also been paired with other items: a basket added around the base to serve as an umbrella stand, a mid-level row of hooks for mittens, scarves or hats; and hooks mounted on a floor lamp for a dual stand/lamp. In this instance, the hooks should be a safe distance from the bulb, so as not to catch the coats and subsequently your house on fire; nobody wants that.
There are some risk associated with the coat stand of which a potential purchaser should be made aware. First, a shoddily constructed stand could collapse under its own weight like certain stars, leaving you with something resembling that nasty “coats on the bed” party pile, choose wisely and construct soundly, and if you are incapable of one of both of these, hire someone out. Second, coat stands have been known for their very undignified behavior around drunk people, such as acting as microphones in off-key renditions of Elvis ballads, and dancing with your boss at the annual holiday party. And lastly, if a paranoid houseguest unfamiliar with your home were to walk into a darkened room and see a coat-laden stand flapping in the breeze from an open window, they might think it is a) a ghost or b) a burglar, leaving you wide open to a lawsuit for emotional trauma (See “Racks,” Paragraph 2, Sentence 4-5.)
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