Hi! Along with the pantry project, I’ve been working on making over the upstairs bathroom. I’ve only got a few more little things to finish in there! Yay! Today I’m going to show you how I made an extra long towel bar. Here’s a pic of the old rod:
It just wasn’t big enough! We need to hang three towels on it every day, and we could hardly fit two.
So I came up with a solution. I happened to have some leftover electrical conduit from making curtain rods, and sure enough, it was the perfect size to fit in the existing mounts! Woot!
You can buy electrical conduit at Home Depot or Lowes. It’s in the electrical section, but it can be hard to find, so I’d just ask someone to point you in the right direction. The last time I bought some, a ten foot piece was $2.
To make the electrical conduit not look like electrical conduit, I used brushed nickel spray paint.
I sprayed the rod, the mounts, and while I was at it, I also sprayed the TP holder and the hand towel ring. (I’ll show you those tomorrow). I also gave them a clear coat just to help them withstand abuse.
Look how all three towels fit on my new, jumbo rod!
I am so thrilled with how it turned out. No more cramped towels!
After I got it done, I thought about all the other places you could use something like this. Wouldn’t it be fantastic in the laundry room? You could make it the full 10 foot length and use it to hang laundry. Or you could put it in a little girls room as a makeshift ballet bar. Or you could use it in the garage with those hook things that have different organizers attached to them. So many possibilities!
Comments & Reviews
That is a seriously great idea!! Did you have to buy a certain kind of mounts for it to work?
That's the best part of this project, Danielle… I didn't have to buy any mounts. I used the ones that were already in the bathroom and just spray painted them so they would match the rod! As long as the old rod is the same size as the electrical conduit, it should work with any mounts.
Nice! What a great idea!
Great idea! I'm just as interested in the back view mirror! I've never seen that before!! Genius!
Yeah… so when we first looked at the house, I saw that back view mirror and thought it was the nerdiest thing I had ever seen. Then I used it for a while and realized that it was actually super handy. Sadly, I took it down to paint and I am not going to put it back up. Pretty won out over functional.
But if you want to make one, it was attached to the wall with two mirror clips on the bottom and a wire that allowed it to angle away from the wall at the top. THe wire was attached to the mirror with two corner braces.
Yeah! Too bad there isn't a cute way to accomplish that. I thought I saw wire and started thinking about a way to do it without having wire holding it… Still haven't thought of anything but it is a great idea.
Do you know what inch conduit you need?
I believe it's the 1/2 inch.
How does the paint hold up 2ith wet toelwels and abuse? Any chipping? Did you watch it before painting?
It held up really well. Definitely de-grease and clean the towel bar well before painting. You could even coat it with a layer of spray primer if you're worried about durability.
From this idea of yours, I wonder if I could try something similar to help my aunt put curtains up across her longer-than-I-am-tall apartment windows. She can’t stand the vertical blinds that came with the place, which neither open or close the way they should, and she’s often blinded in the morning by some loose/uneven slat not covering her east-facing windows! (And packing tape adds such a sophisticated look to those window treatments, doncha know! 😀 ) I’m thinking I could use PVC instead of conduit, depending on both weight and cost. But now I worry if the center would need to be supported, how I could do that. I’m guessing even your extra-long towel bar isn’t close to 6 feet, so you probably haven’t dealt with it drooping in 4 years’ time.