Today's House Project

Dick was in full "Let's get stuff done around the house" mode this weekend!

Today's big project was hanging a set of 4 prints that he's been meaning to hang for 3-4 years now. (it takes us a while to get inspired sometimes.) The prints are Chinese in style, so one would naturally assume that they are family pieces from my side of the family.

Wrong.

They are, in fact, family pieces from Dick's family! :)

Dick's parents family bought these in the 60s or early 70s. They were hung in the dining room of the house that Dick and his sisters grew up in. When Dick's Dad sold the house several years ago, the siblings divided up the family pieces that he would no longer have room for. Dick's sister, Kathy, originally claimed ownership to these prints, but a few years ago, Dick and Kathy swapped out a set of Silver for the prints.

Kathy shipped these to us at least 3 years ago. We've been meaning to put them up in our stairwell, but we weren't quite sure where, or even how.

The stairwell is naturally a tough place to hang anything. I never had anything hung there in the 10 years that I've owned the upstairs condo.

Well, today was the day that Dick woke up and declared that we were going to hang them. My first question: "How do you intend to do that?" I was envisioning precariously perched ladders, with precariously perched people dangling off them them, attempting to figure out where to hammer nail or screw into the wall, over a flight of stairs. It wasn't a pretty picture, and just imagine how many things could go wrong.

And that's when I came up with my brilliant idea of the week: We have picture-hanging molding (which we use to hang pictures from throughout the rest of the house). Why can't we use it in the stairwell, too?

Long story short, Dick fashioned a clever tool consisting of a wire hanger, duct tape, and an extension rod that I had for some unknown purpose. In total, it gave us about 7 feet of extra length, which turned out to be enough for us to reach the molding with.

"The Tool"

First step: hang the picture-hanging clips onto the picture-hanging molding. Dick was able to accomplish this task surprisingly easily with our newly-fashioned, Macgyver-Inspired tool.

Dick using "The Tool" to position the picture-hanging hooks

Next step: While Dick positioned the hooks, I took out the spool of clear fishing line, and strung them to the eyelets behind each frame. We had to eyeball the length, but it worked within the first couple of tries.

Last step: Dick held the frame in position while I used our handy-dandy tool to loop the fishing line onto the picture hook. Worked like a charm! We had to take them down a couple of times to make final adjustments to the length of the wire, but all-in-all, it went very well!

The final product

It may have taken us a few years to get to it, but we're both really pleased with the final product. It really dresses up the stairwell nicely, and we're happy to have them up!