Years ago, when I was putting together my very make-shift kitchen, I searched and searched for a pot rack that was the opposite of the ones that seemed to be everywhere – clunky or “country”-ish, overly ornate or verging on Medieval.  Nothing I found accommodated my personal pot rack idiosyncrasies that includes not liking pots hanging over head, or making my small space looking cluttered. 

So I turned to towel bars. It was a small shift in thinking to envision these sleek steel bars hung with hooks and copper, rather than terry cloth. Why not use a towel bar as a pot rack? (Or simply change its name?)

I installed three towel bars on one wall in a nook behind my fridge, to make three levels of pots, which I hung from S-hooks bought on Canal Street, New York City’s hardware-scavenger’s heaven. I had only to make sure the racks were anchored securely to the wall, to carry the weight of whatever I’d hang on them, from copper cookware to cast-iron skillets and griddles. (Beware, though, of towel bars that hold the towel more than two or 3 inches from the wall and have only one horizontal bar as a bracket; the farther pots hand from the wall, the more they’ll weigh on the rack, potentially putting stress on the anchor.)

Unfortunately, I don’t have a source for my towel bar-pot rack, since it’s been a decade since I bought it. (I’m on the look-out, in case it’s still being made). But the gist is a good one: re-purposing racks of various kinds, from towel bars to curtain rods.

Here’s another source for inexpensive S-hooks.

or S-hooks made for flat bars.

Note: the grapevine wreath is for smoking salmon in an iron skillet…tk.