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Comfort in the house is “gathered” from the little things. It is the small details that give the house originality and comfort, make living much more pleasant and comfortable. One of these small things is a wall key holder. If there is nowhere to put the keys, then you have to look for them for a long time. It spoils the nerves, makes you nervous. The key holder is far from a complicated thing, it is easy to do it yourself. By the way, a homemade key holder can be a great gift.
A little about the boring: types of housekeepers
As you probably understand, there is no strict or official classification. But the whole variety of key holders can be divided into several categories or types. According to the location or method of application, there are wall and pocket key holders.
Pocket are a case made of leather, fabric or other similar materials. This case has loops (metal or strong cord) to which the keys cling. Pocket key holders are needed more for the convenience and safety of pockets or bags: it is easy to tear thin lining fabric with metal keys. The second function is to have all the keys in one place. They are easier to find even in a women’s bag.
Wall hangers for keys can be open or closed. Closed – small drawers with a hinged door with hooks stuffed inside. Doors can also be hinged or lifting. Closed key holders are suitable for those keys that are rarely used. Constantly opening and closing the door is not very convenient.
Wall-mounted open key holders are more common and can have a very diverse look. The most famous and simple is a plank with small hooks. Any hooks: furniture, nails or screws, pieces of thick copper wire, wooden knots. You can use old forks, furniture handles, and the same old keys bent in the form of a hook. In general, fantasy is not limited, you can fix everything that the key ring fits on. And it doesn’t have to be all the same. The combination can be very interesting.
Wall key holders are also made from various, sometimes unexpected things or materials, but the most common are wooden or sheet material such as plywood, MDF, etc. Especially often, wood is used to make do-it-yourself key holders. It is easier to work with wood or plywood and the result is more or less guaranteed, even if you are doing something yourself for the first time. Making a wall key holder with your own hands is a good experience for beginners.
Open type wall key holder: ideas and options
If you decide to make a housekeeper, it’s best to start with something that isn’t too complicated. First, decide on the place where you plan to hang the product. This will make it easier and faster to choose a model – long and narrow or closer to a square, circle, etc. in shape. Next is a matter of technology. Most of the models are quite simple, even if you are doing something with your own hands for the first time.
From wooden planks
As we have already said, wall-mounted wooden key holders are one of the most common options for do-it-yourselfers. Now you will understand why… Probably, it is not a problem for anyone to find a few tablets. Boards of any size and thickness will do. You can use long thin strips – 20-30 mm wide, medium – 40-70 mm or even wide. They can be connected to each other, folding into the shape you need / like. Three examples are pictured below. When you decide on the form, you can start processing.
Processing wood is also not a problem. You can use different methods. If you want to have something classic and strict, we take sandpaper or a grinder and grind the surface to smoothness. Further – you can cover with paint, oil, stain with or without varnish. All this gives different types of surface, respectively, and looks different.
If you need a more informal look – a loft or something like that, you can take a metal brush (you can – a nozzle on a drill), remove some soft fibers. A clear wood grain will appear. It’s quick and easy to do this with pine. You just need to find a board with an interesting pattern. Next – you can again go through wood oil, stain, water-based varnish with a coloring pigment. All of them give a different effect, but the protruding parts stain worse, the wood shines through. The soft part is darker. As a result, the wood pattern appears more clearly.
Approximately the same effect, but more “hard” gives processing with a blowtorch. Soft fibers burn, the structure is more clearly manifested. But here you have to be careful not to overheat. It’s impossible to restore…
Next – we fasten the boards, nail the hooks. Read more about hooks below, as well as how to attach the key holder to the wall.
In combination with a shelf
Wall key holder just for keys – not very practical. We don’t usually have many bundles to fill a dozen hooks with. Therefore, combined models often appear – with a small shelf for small things, which also have a place near the door.
Sizes and formats, as you can see, are different. Difficulty level too. Choose at your discretion. You can make an L- or T-shaped design, attach hooks to the top or bottom.
There is a very interesting idea in the photo – a key holder on magnets without hooks (on the left in the photo above). At the bottom of the shelf, small magnets are glued in, which attract the keys. It is convenient to use – no need to “aim”, everything happens very quickly. Magnets – if they are the same and look “civilized”, you can stick them on the front surface, if the sizes are different, it is better to make recesses in shape. The magnet itself should protrude slightly above the surface – by 1-2 mm. This is enough to find it by touch (if necessary).
From plywood
In a sense, plywood is easier to work with than wood. The surface has already been processed, all that is needed is to cut it into shape, walk along the edge with an emery cloth. Then paint, and you can proceed to the final – attach the hooks.
The good thing about plywood key holders is that you can cut out any shape. Any shape, style. For housekeepers, images of keys are often used, but it can also be a dog, a bird, a mouse … whatever.
From picture frames
If you have a picture frame or can make one, it will also make a very good wall key holder. On the reverse side, you need to fix some kind of base, for example, a piece of fiberboard or hardboard silt. It is more convenient to fasten with staples from a construction stapler. As a last resort, use an all-purpose adhesive.
Inside the frame, you can paint the surface, stick a picture, plain paper, a piece of wallpaper … Whatever you want or think of. Hooks can be attached to the frame or to the inside – this is again as you wish. The point is their type and the load that is planned.
wooden and without hooks
You will not believe, but there is a wall key holder without hooks and magnets. It is usually made from natural wood, since in this material the idea is most easily implemented. After all, you can not hang the keys by the ring, but stick them into something. For example, in a slot. It remains only to make such cracks, and this is not at all difficult.
Moreover, as you can see, cuts can be both horizontal and at an angle. You can make them using, for example, a milling machine. This is the most accurate and safest way. You can also use a circular saw. Even an ordinary saw. It is only important to stop in time and then process the cut well.
Dashboards of various devices are also in business
If old non-working appliances have been preserved in the pantry, in which there are panels with sockets into which plugs were once inserted, you have a chance to make an exclusive key holder. Carefully cut out this panel, insert plugs with key rings into the sockets. All is ready. Can be hung on the wall.
No worse is obtained using the headstock from a guitar / violin / cello or any other stringed instrument. You can use pegs, you can add hooks. By the way, no one bothers to make an imitation if it is a pity to spoil the instrument. That might make it even more interesting.
Hooks for key holder
Hooks can be made from a variety of materials. For classics, you can start with a trip to a store selling furniture fittings. There is plenty to choose from. There are hooks furniture, overhead, which are attached to the surface.
Hooks can also be attached to plywood, but for this they must be glued. The main thing is to find a suitable glue, with good adhesion to wood and plastic or metal, from which the selected hooks are made.
There are different kinds/types of self-tapping screws/screws with hooks at the ends. They need to be screwed into the board, so this is not an option for plywood.
There are also picture hooks (pictured below). They are made of plastic, in the case they have several metal pins. These pins are clogged with a hammer, and they even enter concrete without problems. The only downside to this option is the price. And yes, they look good and hold up well.
These are just standard hook options. In general, it can be made from knots, old keys, forks, wire … everything that has a small thickness and a suitable shape, or which can be given this shape.
How to make a wall key holder with your own hands: photo report
For the manufacture of a wall key holder, the following materials were needed:
- Frame for a photo of a suitable format. A door is made from it.
- Bars wooden 20*40 mm.
- Fiberboard.
- Hooks, loops, doorknob.
From the tool – a saw, a jigsaw, a construction stapler with staples, a drill and a screwdriver. Well, and a tape measure with a pencil. This is the first thing they did with their own hands, so there are enough mistakes.
Making a frame
First of all, the bars were sawn to the size of the frame. Connected with staples from a stapler. It turned out the frame of the part that is hung on the wall. A piece of fiberboard was cut to size and also attached to the frame with staples.
There are two best solutions here. The first is to make the connection of the bars by sawing them at 45 °. It looks much better, although it is more difficult to perform. If you are unsure that the sawing will turn out smoothly, you can do it as in the photo. But it is better to fasten the bars with self-tapping screws. And this is clear. Let there be no heavy load on the key holder, and fiberboard gives rigidity to the frame, but it is more secure to fix the bars with self-tapping screws.
If the connection is as in the photo, self-tapping screws – two pieces for each joint – are twisted from above, perpendicular to the top board. To make the screw go easier, pre-drill holes. The diameter of the drill is 1-2 mm smaller than the diameter of the self-tapping screw.
Install hook rails
From the same bars we saw off two segments – according to the internal size of the box. We put them in the case, fix them on the back side with brackets. We take furniture hinges, mark their position on the body, mark the holes for fasteners. We make holes with a drill, fasten the hinges and put a furniture magnet to fix the door in the closed state.
Here, too, there is something to do “more correctly”. It is better to fix the strips through the walls of the frame with the same self-tapping screws. So that they do not move, they can just be fixed with brackets, but then it is better to screw in two self-tapping screws on each side. So that the caps do not stick out, pick up a drill that is slightly larger in diameter than the diameter of the self-tapping cap. Make a hole for the self-tapping screw (the drill is 1 mm smaller than the diameter of the screw), then small indentations with a large diameter to hide the hat.
We assemble the door and install the hinges
Next, we make the door. From the same fiberboard we cut out a piece of a suitable size and fasten it with staples. On one side we drill a through hole, install the handle. On the other, we mark where the loops need to be fixed, unscrew them, attaching the counterparts, mark the place for installing the fasteners. After making holes, put the hinges in place, connecting the two parts.
As usual, the description of the best option. As you can see, there is a decent gap between the door and the case. With such an installation of loops, this is inevitable. To avoid it, the loop is circled around the perimeter with a sharp pencil (it is better to scratch it with a knife blade), then with the help of a chisel, a certain amount of wood is taken out – to the thickness of the loop plate. Its surface should be flush with the frame. A similar operation is done with the counterpart. The hinge installed in this way will not give a gap, although more work is required.
In general, for the first experience is not bad. But in order for the wall key holder to look more presentable, it is desirable to finish it. Finishing is already a matter of taste, but you need to at least polish it. If there is no grinder, this can be done with sandpaper fixed on a bar. To begin with, take the average grain, then smaller and smaller.
But how to decorate further – this is already to your taste. Paint, stain or varnish, stick a photo, picture, make decoupage. Sea options. A few are in the photo above.
Non-standard homemade key holders on the wall
It is not at all necessary that the manufacture of a wall key holder should be long and stubborn. And no one said that you can not use non-standard materials. As always, everything is possible in needlework, sometimes even what is forbidden. A few ideas that can please you with simplicity and unusualness.
The first number is the use of connectors and suitable plugs. We make key rings from the plugs, and fasten the “waste” connectors near the front door. All in all, twenty minutes.
An ordinary stick can also be turned into a housekeeper. Make hooks from aluminum wiring, wrap them around a stick, decorate it with colored twine, and paint it with paints. Mounting on the wall is also not a problem – the rope is tied at both ends, clings to a carnation or hook.
Throwing away wine corks is an unheard of waste. They make a very interesting keychain. The corks are glued together, and then screws with hooks are screwed into them. Stylish and unusual, minimum time and cost.
If there is just a piece of good wood, it can be polished, covered in several layers with wood oil with pigment. It’s already turning out beautifully. Finding or making hooks in a small format is not a problem, but the board itself can be decorated with something.
The photo above is a stylized key, but it can be anything. Something interesting that resonates with the interior or reflects your hobbies. Yes, at least glue a couple of magnets brought from travels. It is no longer fashionable to hang them on refrigerators, but here they will be just right.
If the tennis ball is cut about half way, it will hold small objects perfectly. From several of these “holders” you can make a key holder in a sports house. The second option is in the picture on the right. If you can fix the balls on the rod (with glue, for example), inserting small hooks is not a problem. The problem is that they are likely to spin. And to prevent this from happening, you can pour a composition inside the ball, which, after drying / polymerization, will become rigid. The first thing that comes to mind is tile adhesive. It just needs to be poured carefully. If it gets on the surface of the ball and hardens, you can’t wash it off.