Hanging Magazine Rack on the Cheap

Recently the trend in magazine racks is something that allows them to hang upside down with a rod of some sort between their pages to hold them up. The coolest ones I've seen are in towers that allow the magazines to hang in an overlapping fashion, but don't actually hold very many magazines.

Another one I saw was a wooden coffee table that had slits in the top for hanging your magazines. Just like the other ones, this one was far from cheap, and doesn't really hold that many magazines.

After seeing the coffee table version, I had an idea. I had an open hanging file rack that I initially purchased for implementing the 43 folders method of organization that is part of the Getting Things Done system. Sadly, that method lasted about 2 days for me (sorry, Mr. Allen).

I emptied out this rack, and gathered a stack of empty hanging file folders. I proceeded to remove the rails from the file folders, giving me a number of very ugly metal sticks with only the ends painted white. I decided not to care that they were ugly. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could paint them all before using them.

As you've probably guessed by now, I then put one of these rods approximately in the middle of each magazine, and then hung them upside down in my file rack. I figure this method cost me at most $30, unlike as much as hundreds with the other methods. If you really don't want your magazines out in the open, you could obviously put them in enclosed filing cabinets instead.