I have chosen to pick a rural industrial aesthetic for my upcycling project. I live in a rural, mountainous area (western slope, CO), so the materials available here are generally rural or rural industrial in their aesthetic.

I work as a mountain guide on the weekends, which means that I have a lot of gear to organize and maintain, and living in a small apartment means that I have very little space to accommodate this gear, and I need better ways to do so. For my project, I’d like to build something that helps me to better organize my gear, and use up cycling to do it!

I’d like the aesthetic to be clean enough looking that I want to keep it around, so that means no rust or nasty cardboard. I’ve tried to remodel my apartment in a modern, mountain aesthetic using a lot of stone and wood so I’m hoping to utilize that aesthetic in some regard, but incorporate some level of industrial look to it as I love engineering and the industrial look.

Most of my gear is currently stored in my closet, so it would be nice to better use that space. Perhaps I can upcycle some sort of rack onto my closet door with an industrial aesthetic. I realize that the light colored wood doesn’t look super industrial, but I think it could pair well with a steel or copper metal.

My closet (don’t judge too much, I know it’s a mess).

I’ve seen some cool racks made out of copper piping as seen here (reference):

I like the aesthetic of this, it fits in both the rural and industrial aesthetics, and I’ve done a fair amount of braising so I know it’s possible to  construct.

The above example would allow me to use screw fittings instead of having to heat the piping, so an interesting option but a less clean aesthetic (reference).

I think ultimately I want as much versatility as I can get with this rack, and I use a lot of carabiners so I need something that can have a carabiner easily fit around it, perhaps best to trend to thinner metal material. One thought would be to use chain link fencing. This could be bent into a desired shape and would certainly fit the rural industrial aesthetic I’m shooting for. This is probably a good place to start, and where I’ll put my energy first.