Hi from Sydney

Chris here, totally new to doing things myself and trying to build things except for a bit of wood work in year 9 oh about 13 years ago.

I really enjoyed it back then but did not keep up with it due to other interests taking over.

Basically I have now the need to have something custom built. For me it is a somewhat daunting task. For you guys I assume it would be an easy task.

I have made my designs using google sketchup which I found really handy and took my back to using autocad (although this was a dumbed down).

So I guess I should state what I am making.

It is a clothes rack. Similar to this http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Articles/clothes_rack/clothes_rack_files/clothes_rack4web.jpg

However mine is customised to have 2 cross poles. a bottom support and a top support and a shelf then built on top of that.

My question now comes to the fact that as this thing will be 2200mm tall and supporting 2 rods of clothes. 1800mm wide and I'm tossing up a 700mm base or wider, I am wondering what type of wood to use? Pine, well its the cheapest option that I know of but I want strength. Would pine be enough? For the uprights what dimension should I choose. I modelled the design of 70mmx70mm but i figured this woudl be a bit of overkill. would 90x42 suffice.

The rack is not designed to be portable so I am looking at a solid unit and weight isn't an issue.

heaviest clothes would be on the bottom and lightest (business shirts) on top.

Ideally i would like a darker wood as all my furniture is dark, but i understand that I can stain or paint the wood to make it darker.

Thankyou for your help and appreciate any responses


Cheers Chris