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Loster Trap Towel Rack (say it 3 times fast)

Posted by Cobi on Monday August 17, 2009 at 06:00 AM
cottage • craft • summer • Comments (9)

I know not everyone has an old lobster trap kicking around waiting to be used for a project, but this worked out so well, I had to share it with you. And who knows, maybe some of my East Coast friends can use the idea?

On this years summer holiday at our cottage in PEI, Bob and I had to make a trip to the dump where there was a large pile of wood refuse, and being the island, a good part of it was made up of lobster traps and parts there of.

Surprisingly Bob and I both spied the same beautiful piece in particular that was just the simple arched frame, with no netting left on it and weathered to a perfect grey. My agreeable husband kindly climbed the pile and grabbed it for me - they’re heavier than you’d think! - and as we threw it in the van, we agreed we’d do something with it, although we weren’t sure what.

By the time we got home, I knew what. Bob screwed it to the side of our outdoor shower - it happened to fit the shower frame perfectly and we had a great towel rack up within 10 minutes (and no arguing!). It would also work vertically but the support wasn’t as good in our situation, it might be in another.

Anyway, it works like a charm and was easy peasy lemon squeezy to install - as easy as squeezin’ lemon on a lobster, by!

Oh, another little tip that even non-islanders can use: 2 years ago we painted the aluminum siding of our cottage gray to match the colour of the weathered decking, spindles and lattice around the place. It’s made the cottage look so much more cohesive (the odds and sods and bits that don’t line up blend in now) and we just use white trim on things that we do want to highlight like the screen doors. It’s a great idea if you have weathered wood on portions of your home or cottage that you don’t want to paint or stain (ie. maintain) - paint the other parts of the building to match!

After going through tons of grays and trying to match one to a broken spindle that I carried around in my purse, the best colour match was SICO “sketch” #6206-31 and the product my painter used for the aluminum siding is latex 811 Velvet. It goes on beautifully and stays on great (touch wood - or rather, aluminum ).