Coat Tree?? Why not a Bag Tree???

Do you ever solve problems in your sleep? I know I do. Some of my best ideas seem to come to me in dreams.

After my youngest son was potty trained, I moved his old changing table into my craft room to use for storage. First, let's take a moment to celebrate. No more diapers or pull-ups in the house!

The changing table became home to project bags, my knitting wash bucket, blocking boards, and even a pillow for Bailey to nap on. It worked, but there was one problem. It blocked my window, did not match any of the other furniture, and every time I walked into the room, it seemed to shout, "Hello! I am the old changing table!"

It had to go.

Then one night I dreamed about a bag tree.

The year before, we had cut down several pencil pines because we were worried they might fall on the shop or my in-laws' house. During the process, one of the trees fell onto a beautiful dogwood and snapped off an eight-foot limb. I could not bring myself to throw it away. Dogwood is such beautiful wood with a smooth grain, so I laid it along the fence line, knowing I wanted to make something with it someday.

Eleven months later, inspiration finally struck.

Why not clean it up, stain it, add a few hooks, and turn it into a place to hang my knitting project bags?

 

The first step was removing the bark and cleaning off all the bugs. After that came plenty of sanding. Once it was smooth, I cleaned the wood to remove the weathering that had built up while it sat outside. Since the limb was a little over eight feet tall and my ceilings are only eight feet, I trimmed it down with our battery-powered chainsaw. My husband still will not let me use the gas-powered one by myself, and he is probably right.

After another round of sanding, I filled a few imperfections with wood filler before staining the entire piece. I used the same Driftwood stain that I had used on my desk so everything would match. I even stained the metal shelf brackets that would hold the limb against the wall. Once the stain had dried, I sealed everything with a clear protective finish and let it cure overnight.

The finished project turned out even better than I imagined. My favorite part is the little 1980s monster sitting on top, adding a bit of personality. Best of all, I traded an awkward changing table for a functional storage solution that displays my project bags while opening up the room.

Looking back, this is still one of my favorite DIY projects because it turned something that would have been discarded into something both beautiful and useful.

The base, a wooden circle that was in the wood section of Lowe's. Worked so great and was pretty inexpensive. I used the shelf brackets to hold the tree to the base. I also picked up the hooks while I was there, along with the sealer and the stain. 

I am updating this post (July 6, 2026 and I still use it. I can be seen in most of my videos, even today.