Friday, January 11, 2008

2 of 52, revisted (is this another theme?)

Thanks to Donna for commenting that she also finds herself in the "I have the display boxes, but I cant decide how to hang them" mode. Because of you, I now have something to post about today (you go, girl).

I was in that same mode for weeks myself. The boxes I had purchased were just stacked there, still in their cardboard wrapped corners. It was that sort of eyesore that reminds me what a slacker I am (sort of like the paperbags full of unopened mail I tend to collect...but that's another story).

What kept me from just slapping the boxes up on the wall is that during the move to the new house, I discovered that my pretty big fear of decorating was more than just pretty big. Historically, I'd always kept my house with white walls and looking fairly drab, and I blamed my fear on time or money. Unfortunately, with the move, those were no longer viable excuses (I still limits on time and money, sure....but to a lesser enough degree that they could no longer be used as the outright culprit excuse anymore).

I've posted before about my angst wjile selecting wall colors and wood floors. The whole experience was worthy of anti-anxiety meds, to be honest with you. I was just getting tweaked out about it, even though mentally I had the notion that most things can be un-done, moved, taken out, painted over, etc. I just couldn't wrap my emotions around that knowledge. Since then, I have now made several of those fearful decisions. I am not fearless, but I am feeling more confident in myself and the decorating process.

Sorry. Back to the wall o'boxes.

It was KarenTheDancingLurker that gave me the idea of how to break through my NotHangingTheBoxes phase.I couldn't begin the task of mounting the boxes because I couldn't visualize it well enough, and I didn't want to make holes all over the wall trying to figure it out. Karen suggested that I cut out paper shapes the size of the objects I wanted to mount, and tape them onto the wall. Then I could rearrange them until I got it just where I wanted them and use it as a template.

Well, duh. (thanks, Karen!)

Once I did that and moved templates around for a few days, things went great! When TheMostImportantGuy came to put the boxes up for me, we laid the actual boxes out on the floor, and I took another photo, which he used that as a guide.



We made some tweaks to the original plan to accommodate more sound wall anchoring, and as the thing went up box by box, I'd come take a peek and move something here or there. I think the biggest change to the original design was to make one box be not connected to the other boxes, sort of off floating by itself (it's down in the bottom right corner, as seen in yesterday's post). I like that box. It's my favorite :-)

The lesson learned I guess, is that once I had gotten the general idea of the look I had wanted by taping the papers to the wall, shifting things on the fly during the mounting was much easier. I had already figured out the essence of what I wanted.
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Oh, one more note. Look what I did yesterday:



new crutch tips ~ yay

I got new hand grips while I was at it. From the looks of things, I could probably stand new crutches, too! They're a little banged up, I guess. But I love them. They are workhorses, and are the most solid feeling crutch I have ever used (and I've tried a few).

Maybe I'll just given them a paint job ;-)

9 comments:

jodi said...

Hooray for mobility! I can't believe you haven't yet knit those crutches a cosy.

Janice in GA said...

Yay for new crutch tips!

And if you don't want to paint them, wind some ribbon around them where it won't interfere with anything. Temporary decoration that you can change at will!

(I did that with the can I used after my knee surgery.)

MsAmpuTeeHee said...

jodi ~ no, no full on cozies. I thought I might knit covers for the underarm portion, but that might be too rough or it might felt into something too rough. What I really want to knit is a little purse to hang off it. I already have one mounted on the crutches, but it is nylon. I need to make a prettier one.

janice ~ dude, I think you meant "cane" but this is the truth: for a few seconds I was imagining ribbons wrapped around one of the gimpy potties they send you home with so you dont have to sit down so low. What an image hahahahaha.

Anonymous said...

You need to stay safe, so I'm glad you got these retreads.

~Donna~ said...

You're welcome girl...any time!

I'm still purging stuff, so it'll be awhile before I can visualize. Gotta get rid of all the 'stuff' first...sigh...

Carrie said...

Yeah, paint racing stripes on them!~ =) Love the boxes, too. They look great, and verrrry artsy. You go, girl!

MsAmpuTeeHee said...

mhw ~ I agree. Thank you.

donna ~ I'm with ya, sister...*hands donna a plastic bag and a bin for the stuff to be donated*

carrie ~ racing stripes! hmmm! I like that!

jodi said...

Heh. I too misunderstood Janice's typo, but I at first thought she meant her rear end. Which, beribboned, is a much more pleasing mental picture than yours, and also is something that I could imagine Janice pulling off with style.

If you let me know your size/strap requirements, I can make you a little bag with some of my printed fabrics. . . it'll help me motivate myself to get on the sewing machine.

MsAmpuTeeHee said...

jodi ~ ha! I like that image much better, actually.
Wow! I would love something awesome and custom and jodi-esque for the crutches! I'll take a couple of pics for you of the crutch bags I have now, and take some measurements.
I wish we lived close enough that I could just make you lunch and a pot of tea and we could talk about it in person. One of these days I shall stalk you down ;-)