Level Playing Field

Since starting my business, my own house has definitely suffered in the style department. I’ve always heard that people who specialize in something often neglect themselves in that area…I totally understand what that means now! On top of everything else, we are starting to take steps to get our house ready to list and hopefully get moved in the next few months--EEP! Part of that process is me letting go of a lot of my clutter (er…I mean collections) and do all the fix-it things to the house that you live with for years, but have to do to sell. Stay tuned for posts about clearing out, letting go, prepping your house to sell, and how to deal with all those annoying house projects.

Even though I’m in purge-mode, I still want to enjoy our house while we’re here…it is after all our first house and I do love it deeply! A while back, I stumbled across this lovely art piece that I thought was a gorgeous oil painting. After practically running to it in the thrift (I didn’t want to risk someone else getting it), I realized it was just a print. It was so gorgeous, though, I still got it…the colors are perfect for our house. I was inspired by a piece my friend Andrea shared with a fantastic quote from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” I passed the print off to my friend Abby to do the hand-lettering and couldn’t wait to get it back!

I picked the piece up on Monday and, of course as my luck goes, the hanging hardware on the piece was less than stellar. So, I stopped into our local, family-owned hardware store, Hiland Park Hardware Co., yesterday and picked up a new-to-me product that I was excited to try out, the Hangman Self Leveling Flushmount Hanger.

The package specifically called out using this hardware on a canvas, but I was sure it would work just fine for this frame. Plus, it said ‘self-leveling’ on the back of the package—ummm…sold. I grabbed 2 screwdrivers and went to work.

The first thing I did was remove the old hanging hardware—I didn’t want anything scratching the wall if this moved at all once I hung it. Then, I held the piece that I needed to screw into place where I thought it needed to go—middle of the frame, with the toothed part of the hanger hitting just the bottom of the inside top of the frame. Once I had it screwed into place, I was ready to put the longer, hanging screw that came in the package into the wall. I had a nail hole already in the wall where I wanted to hang the picture, but after holding it up on the wall to see what spacing looked like, I realized I wanted it a smidge higher. I completed this whole project with just the 2 screw drivers I pictured above. If you struggle to get either of the screws in, though, you could for sure pre-drill the holes…I don’t think you’ll need to at all, though!

I normally have zero patience when it comes to projects like this… Z E R O. I was really proud of myself this time around, though, that I didn’t just somehow rig the picture to hang on the wall in its original state AND that I took the time to find the perfect hanging hardware to use. If you’re interested in the Hangman Products, you can read more about the one I used and more here. I am totally going to be buying their self-drilling screws; they hold so securely in the drywall w/o using any type of an anchor…or drill. Hallelujah!

Now, I can sit back and take Ferris’s advice and enjoy my newly-styled living room. Just for a few minutes, though…there’s work to be done. 😊