8 Creative Uses of Coat Hangers

Are those old wire hangers in your closet gathering more dust than coats? Make them useful again whenever you do caulking jobs, hang plants, paint, and more! Double your closet space with these 8 extraordinary uses for your coat hangers.

1. Stop caulk-tube ooze

To prevent caulk from oozing out of the tube once the job is done, cut a 3-inch (7.5 cm) piece of coat hanger wire and shape one end into a hook and insert the other, straight end into the tube. Now you can easily pull out the stopper as needed.

2. Secure a soldering iron

Leeping a hot soldering iron from rolling away and burning something on your workbench can be a real problem. To solve this, just twist a wire coat hanger into a holder for the iron to rest in. To make the holder, simply bend an ordinary coat hanger in half to form a large V. Then bend each half in half so that the entire piece is shaped like a W.

3. Create arts and crafts

Make mobiles for the kids’ room using wire coat hangers, and paint them in bright colors. Or use hangers to make wings and other accessories for costumes.

4. Unclog toilets and vacuum cleaners

If your toilet is clogged by a foreign object, fish out the culprit with a straightened wire coat hanger. Use a straightened hanger to unclog a jammed vacuum cleaner hose.

5. Light a hard-to-reach pilot light

The pilot light has gone out way inside your stove or furnace and you’d rather not risk a burn by lighting a match and sticking your hand all the way in there. Instead, open up a wire hanger and tape the match to one end. Strike the match, then use the hanger to reach the pilot to light it.

6. Make a mini-greenhouse

To convert a window box into a mini-greenhouse, bend three or four lengths of coat hanger wire into u shapes and place the ends into the soil. Punch small holes in a dry-cleaning bag and wrap it around the box before putting it back in the window.

7. Hang a plant

Wrap a straightened wire coat hanger around a 6 to 8-inch (15–20 cm) flowerpot just below the lip, twist it back on itself to secure it, and hang.

8. Make plant markers

Need some waterproof plant signs for your outdoor plants? Just cut up little rectangles from an empty plastic milk carton or similar rigid but easy-to-cut plastic. Write the name of the plant with an indelible marker. Cut short stakes from wire hangers. Make two small slits in each marker and pass the wire stakes through the slits. Neither rain nor sprinkler will obscure your signs.