Friday, July 22, 2011 Joey Has Something to Say...
Ah, the moose head... Let me tell you a bit about how it took a year of waiting for the right deal, a few months of waiting for it to arrive, and then finally another year before we could find a suitable
place to hang his shiny head.
Lana had her eye on this guy for quite a while. Periodically reminding me how much she loved him and knew exactly where he was going to live in our home. I agreed, we probably needed a stately white moose head. So, Lana kept watch from her shopping blind, waiting patiently to pull the trigger. Then, one day, without warning, she announced he was ours.
We unwrapped our newest prize to find... a broken antler. Oh joy of joys!
Luckily, we had ordered some weirdo, fix all, putty off the TV. I mashed it together with a rubber mallet, (I didn't feel like my hands were mashing adequately) and jammed it into and around the offending antler. 60 minutes or so later, a little light sanding and a quick pass with some glossy white spray paint, and our moose was worthy of a place in ol' Teddy Roosevelt's collection!
But where to put him. We had recently done a little work on our mud room, and with the cedar interior, we thought it would make a fitting home. So, I took some measurements, decided he wasn't going to fit, and proceeded to try and hang him anyway. After exhausting myself and drilling 4 unnecessary holes in our wall, I took him upstairs, removed his antlers and placed him gently in a wicker basket full of sheets.
And there he lay until a few days ago when we sat up in our chairs and declared that we would not be beaten by a lacquer moose head!
Lana and I made a decision that right above our fireplace, on our newly painted wall would be a perfect place to display our once again beloved friend. So I got my drill and some screws that I very scientifically tested in the hanging brackets on the back of his head.
And then I hit a snag.
On my first attempt hanging him up I just did some guess work on where the holes needed to be drilled into the wall. Hence I ended up with twice as many holes as mounting brackets. I needed to find a way to mark where the mounting brackets fell on the wall without x-ray vision.
And believe me I tried a few ridiculous things (like cramming a pencil in the bracket and pretending it would stay level and true while I marked the position).
I ended up getting some painters tape and laying one strip the full length of his neck and another one right over the mounting brackets. I poked some holes where the screws would eventually need to land, removed the tape, and placed it on the wall carefully remembering to check my placement with a level. The tape very kindly told me where to drill and I only ended up with two holes in the wall and a level moose!
And yes, I know that anyone with any experience (or keeps instruction booklets) would probably have a better/quicker/less contrived way of marking the wall, but this made my day.
And I wish to pass it on to you, dear reader, to use as you see fit.
Reader Comments (14)
this tape idea is genius! i usually spend so much time trying to measure and hang a picture (or whatever) in the perfect spot and it ends up off... but i live with it. No more! Thanks for the tip :)
Whoah! Just had flashbacks of all the screw and nail holes hiding in my house :) But no more - thanks for the awesome tip!
Where did you buy the Moose Head?
@tyson zgalleries.com !
@amy joey is super happy it is a help!
@KD ugh! i know. that's why we are so scared to hang anything! yay for the joey tip to free us from holes!
Wow, that tape IS genius. I can't believe I never thought of that. Sure would have saved me about 37 holes in the wall. :)
@meri i know! joey rocks!
That is a GENIUS idea! I just had a terrible time putting Ikea spice racks up, and this would have helped a ton!
Love your moose head. We have a large moose? deer? head made from scrap metal hanging above our mantle. We named him Melvin. People probably thought we were crazy but he makes us smile and totally personalizes our house. Now if we had only had read your blog prior to trying to hang it we wouldn't have the large drill holes we need to sand down, fill and paint over.
@blair ha! joey is good like that. we are scared of holed (coming from a city apartment and all) so necessity was the mother of this invention for sure! do you have a photo of melvin? i want to see!
@katie eeesh! you got them up though, right?
That is an awesome tip with the tape - those things are impossible to line up and no, the pencil stuck in the hole doesn't work, neither does putting the screws in there and attempting to make a small scratch/mark in the wall. I'll definately remember this one.
@carla gotta hand it to joey, he's a boy wonder! haha it's nuts i havent seen anyone else think of this!