I think I have mentioned over and over on this blog about our desire to make our home a place that reflects our family. Today, Peter and I were surveying our yard talking about where to plant an apple tree we have being delivered the beginning of next month. As we walked and talked about where the tree will go, we talked about this home finding a place in each of our hearts. This house is becoming so special to us. We are making lots of history in our house.
It would be hard if we ever made the decision to leave this house for one reason or another. We have put lots of time and effort into making this home a reflection of us and our two little boys.
We wanted something in our entry way that where we could easily change up pictures and prints. Life changes so fast for us right now, and I wanted a place to easily pin up a verse, or new picture, or new favorite fabric scrap.
This is what we came up with:
Peter and I have talked over and over again about the white planked walls I see all over Pinterest. I love them. I would plank our vaulted wall in a heartbeat if I knew how. 🙂 After lots of discussion about holes in drywall, we have decided to let those thoughts drift elsewhere. For now, our walls will stay painted.
This large planked wood wall hanging is my way of adding some of that look to our home. Plus, I wanted something with a bulletin board type feel.
I took some pictures as Peter assembled this large wall hanging. Hopefully you can use it as some inspiration to create your own decoration for your home that reflects your family.
Supplies:
4 Poplar boards of desired length – 36 inches
60 Wood screws #8 by 3/4″ long
3 Metal structural connector strap tie – 24 inches long
Wire for hanging
8 Felt Furniture Pads
Tools:
Drill or screw driver
Wire cutters/pliers
Stud finder
Since this was to sort of act like a “pin board” to put up pictures, we choose a soft 1 by 8 poplar wood from the local store. It’s soft enough we can use push pins for pictures. We bought two 8′ long boards (Actual dimensions of a 1 by 8 are 3/4″ thick and 7 1/4″ wide). We cut four boards to a length of 36 inches and painted them white. This makes the total size of the hanging 36 inches wide and 29 inches tall.
Next we attached them all together using these 24″ long metal structural tie straps that are typically used in framing by contractors (Actual dimensions 24″ by 1 1/4″). We decided to use them because it keeps the thickness of the hanging to a minimum. If we had used wood boards, the hanging would have stuck out further from the wall.
We liked a small gap between each board, about 1/8″ so we set all four boards painted face down and set the gap. An easy way to do this is to use a nickel between them initially so that the gap is consistent. Once they were positioned, we set the 3 straps across the boards equally and screwed them down using #8 by 3/4″ long wood screws.
Once you get a few screws into each board, remove your nickels used as your spacers. If you like how everything looks, fill in the rest of the holes with the remaining screws. These boards are kind of heavy, so we filled in every hole in the tie straps. Another tip is to use a drill instead of a screw driver, but set the torque setting low – like a 2 or 3. This will keep the drill’s power down and prevent you from stripping the soft poplar
We left the top few holes empty and then bent the tie strap out slightly to use those holes for wire to hang everything. Felt furniture pads were used to keep the wood from scratching our newly painted walls in the entry way. To mount it, we used a stud-finder to find 2 good locations for 2 1/2″ screws and then hung it up!
Decorating the boards were pretty fun too. I finally got around to trying out My Poppet’s homemade scrap fabric twin. I printed off the striped number ‘4’ from Jones Design Company (printed from her Archives). The ‘dwell’ sign came out of The Handmade Home’s Art for the Eclectic Home. The butterfly poster came from Papersource. (It’s actually just a sheet of wrapping paper.)
I had some fun putting some old favorite pictures to use too. All those pictures had been taken out of frames, but I still love them. And I love having a place for them right now.
