Reclaimed Oak Coat Rack

Have I told you about my favorite store?  It's called The Rusty Bucket, and it's one of the closest places to spend money besides my computer.  With better stuff.

This is one of the things they were selling when I walked in a week or so ago:

 It's a solid oak coat rack from the local elementary school (which has been replaced with a new facility).  The 'ol Bucket had the entire length of this thing for sale a month ago, but I wouldn't have known what to do with over 10 feet worth of coat rack, so I passed.  This last time, though, they had pieced it up.  So I snapped it up!

I pulled all the hooks off, got all the stickers and tape residuals off, and sanded off some of the damaged places.  I tried to leave the numbers, though, since that seems to be the "it" thing to do right now.

 I figure I can always sand more later, but maybe the piece would be sad if there were no trace of its old life left to declare its history.  I wiped a bit of Red Mahogany stain all over, working it over to somewhat even out the color. Then I rubbed in some finishing wax and buffed to a soft shine.  We put the hooks from the old mudroom on it (for now) because they're bigger than the ones that were on the oak.  Dave helped me hang it in its new semi-permanent home (heavy beast!):

...just above our new storage bench!

Almost finished!  Remember the original plan for the mudroom?

Missing something, aren't we?  I'll show you that very soon!

(P.S. Isn't that awesome oak coat rack so much better than my original plan of using bits of ply???)