apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

You could do the same thing with an attractive knob (like a retro silver one!) - you would just have to buy the screw inserts which turn knob into something that screws into wood. In my head this makes sense, I will have to hunt down a picture to show you what I mean.

I quite like the look!

Agree with canadian_ginger -- it's just a matter of getting different screws. I've done it before. And in fact, I think home improvement stores have unpainted wooden knobs that might run almost as large as those, so for a few bucks and a little bit of paint... The one problem I had was that the knobs didn't stick out as far from the wall as I wanted (I was using them to suspend a rod), but I put a few washers at the back, which matched the nickel knobs, and voila!

this seems like an easy hack- at the current exchange rate, 60 euro for a cute coat hook seems extremely pricey!