This weekend was VERY productive! It was rainy and cloudy in Raleigh, but the temps started to feel like fall. Friday after work I went and got my nails done with a friend. It was relaxing and good to catch up with her. Saturday I started hanging the wire picture hangers and the floating shelf I got from ikea, that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago here. I also went to the farmer’s market and hung out with some friends to watch the NC State Football game. We’re 3-0 right now!! On Sunday I got a 6 mile long run in. I also made my first batch of chili for the season (I hope to share the recipe later this week) and then finished hanging those pesky projects from Saturday.
The plan was to hang the floating shelf and wire picture hangers in my office, which was currently lacking some wall decorations. I took some risks when painting the office. I wanted to do some wide horizontal stripes somewhere in the house, and the office turned out to be just the room. Two of the walls are striped and the other two walls are white. I was afraid if all the walls were striped it would be too much. The two walls that are white have a couple of corners and are not plain straight walls, so I also decided that I didn’t want to mess with having to tape those walls to paint stripes.
On the wall with the door I decided to hang the dignitets. You can use these to hang curtains and all kinds of things, just Google ‘Dignitet Hack’ and there are tons of ideas. For me, my plan was to hang up some of the postcards I’ve collected on my various trips over the years. I have to say, I HATE the Ikea instructions. The picture only instructions with no words can be difficult to follow. One thing to keep in mind when installing these is to make sure when you mark the holes for the screws that the piece holding the wire will be perpendicular to the floor, when fully tightened. I didn’t do this the first time and just put the anchor on the wall and marked the holes. Whoops!
I measured out the height from the ceiling I wanted to hang each of the picture hangers. I placed some painters tape at each measurement so that I could step back and admire how it would look on the wall as a whole.
Ikea decorations do not come with wall fasteners. As they explain ‘every wall is different and requires different methods to secure each item to the wall.’ I used some simple anchors and matching screws, since I didn’t secure any of the items to a stud.
Once I had installed both wires, I hung the clips I also got from Ikea and picked out some of my favorite postcards from my travels. I found the postcard recording my walk across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the postcard I mailed myself from the Vatican’s post office. I also hung the postcard I have of my great-grandmother’s childhood. It’s nothing fancy, nor is it from a particular travel destination. It’s just a quick conversation between her an a friend, one that we would probably just text someone today. The postcard stamp is dated 1916 and it cost $0.01 to mail it, kinda cool.
I then moved on to hang the floating shelf. I was able to attach the bracket to two studs, which I found using a ‘Stud Finder’ app on my phone. I used 1 5/8 drywall screws to secure the bracket to the studs, and then used a 1 1/2 inch wall anchor as a third anchor point to the wall. The shelf was more of a two person job, but I was able to get it up eventually.
My plan is to get some of these white boards to go underneath the floating shelf. Hopefully they will have them on my next trip to Ikea! What did you get up to this weekend?
