Finding Peace in a Pandemic with Design

      Wow have things changed in the last two weeks! I can still remember when toilet paper wasn't a luxury item and the word "Pandemic" didn't pervade conversation. Everyone has their own way of dealing with stress and mine is of course to design. If I can make my surroundings function better through design it fills me with a happiness and calm that brightens my day. Currently I have taken on the additional role of home school teacher, in addition to interior designer, and my favorite role Mom.
      With three kids at home 24/7 for almost two weeks we have been presented with some challenges that required creative fixes. For example, our paper towel supply ran out even after cutting the roles in half to stretch them out. To be fare we were using them at a much faster rate than we normally would in an attempt to be on the safe side and try to eliminate the spread of germs; my youngest had a cold (low grade fever and a stuffy nose). All three of my children share a common bathroom. With the paper towels gone, and a trip to the store an uneasy proposition I decided that it was time that we installed individual towel hooks for the kids thereby eliminating the stress of hunting down those pesky paper towels permanently. Not being a patient person by nature, especially when homeschool and a sick kid are thrown into the mix, there was no way I was not going to wait a few weeks for Amazon to deliver towels hooks for me. So I enlisted my husband as my accomplice and asked him to cut this simple design from some scrap wood that we had lying around.
     Since we have a wooded property he went a little homesteader on me and found a well seasoned maple wood round from our yard to cut the pieces below out of; seriously this was cut from our wood pile. I love the grain of the maple that he chose for the towel hooks but you could use any scrap piece of wood that you have in your home as long as it is a hard wood ( maple, oak, cherry, etc.) Here it is after he cut the basic shape and pre-drilled a hole for the screw:

   After they were rough cut using a band saw I baked them in the oven on the lowest temperature possible for about an hour to dry out the wood completely. You could skip this step if you are using a scrap piece of lumber, which would already be kiln dried. I honestly loved them just like this but I knew they would need a bit more of a pop to stand out against the midnight blue/gray walls of the children's bathroom. So I decided to paint the lower half white by wrapping the top with blue tape.

   Then I painted the lower half decorators white with some leftover house paint we had lying around. Acrylic craft paint would work as well.

  Finally when the paint was dry I removed the blue tape and sealed all of the sides with a natural wax sealer that I had lying around our wood shop. If I was to do it again I would have preferred to apply a spray shellac as the natural wax sealer tends to pick up any dust in the air so it requires a more attentive application, but Home Depot isn't an option these days so the natural wax sealer did the trick. One thing to keep in mind if you also only have a natural wax sealer lying around. Be sure to test it on a corner to make sure it is compatible with your paint. Here is the finished product ready for application:

With the towel hooks finally ready we installed dry wall anchors into the wall of the kids bathroom. 

They were installed at five feet above the finished floor (eye level) and evenly spaced along the wall

Then we simply screwed in the towel hooks using an electric drill. I chose contrasting black screws since they would be visible. Here is the end product:

I am really happen with my distraction for the day. Design can be a great way to find peace and bless your family. My encouragement to you is to give this idea a try. What do you have to lose except for paper towels!