Wife to Wife Wednesday: Living Room Project

Good morning! Welcome to Wife to Wife Wednesday, the day that we discuss issues relating to marriage. It has been almost a month since my last Wife to Wife Wednesday post. Sorry about that! I have been off... being a wife. Taking care of a home and a family is a full time job! One of the things I did this last month was work on my home. Although B is in the military and we will be PSCing soon to Fort Bragg, there is no reason I cannot improve my home here at Fort Hood. So while looking around my home this last month I look at the living room and thought, "hmmmmmmm, this may be a little too plain". What do you think? 

Living room wall before project

So I decided to start looking into what I could do with all that space. B and I have several picture frames (from the dollar tree) just collecting dust on shelves around the house so, I decided to take the frames and paint a few of them red. I decided to keep a few of them black and toss in a couple of silver ones as well.

 

 I won't lie to you, this part was difficult. We just used regular acrylic paint that you can get from Walmart and sponge brushes. I took three coats of the red paint to cover the plastic frames. It was also pretty messy. We did ours on top of Walmart bags to help protect our table. After they were all painted we left them all over the kitchen to dry while we worked on the next part of the project. 

Since B and I love words we play things like Words With Friends, Scrabble, and Bananagrams regularly. It has kind of become a running joke with us. So, I decided that I really wanted to have decorative scrabble letters that spell out our last name. So we decided to make them. Here is how we did it: 

• We used an 8ft piece of 1x8 pine that we got from Lowes. We checked the board for excessive knots, discoloration, and warping. When we finally found the perfect board we took it home to measure it to be cut. 
• In a flash of brilliance, B remembered that a 1x8 board is not 8in wide. So, if you decide to make these, carefully measure your board to make sure that the width equals the length to get a square tile. B also recommends measuring and marking each piece one at a time, not to measure and mark it all and then cut in order to "save the line". Otherwise each piece will end up slightly shorter than the last and they will look funny. 
• We then sanded and slightly rounded all the edges. This was the most time consuming (and exhausting!) part of this project. B was kind enough to tackle this part for me. 
• I was responsible for painting on the letters after the wood was sanded. Be sure to wipe down the tile with a damp cloth before you start painting! 
• In order to make sure my letters were perfect I printed off the letter and numbers and then cut them out to make stencils. I then traced the stencils on to the wood with a pencil.
• For the painting, you can use regular old acrylic paint, or you can use sharpie like I did. Both work well. 
• After the tiles are painted or sharpied, we varnished them with a semigloss polyurethane varnish. We applied to coats separated by two hours time. 
• We then stapled ribbon to the back (I used "F" ribbon from Hobby Lobby, but any will do) 

One of the many layout designs

The next day after everything was finished, I started to set it all out and decided that we needed more than just the picture frames. I decided to run to Hobby Lobby and see what all they had on sale. The frames and home decor were each 50% off so I decided to go ahead and get the little black frame, the black cross, and the sign about family rules. I then used the Hobby Lobby 40% off coupon to purchase the rhinestone F. Total cost was approximately $18.00. For the little black frame I  ran to Walmart on the way home and had a copy of our first house key made. I put red paper in the frame and glued the key inside.  

Then, it was time to set it all out. I set it out seven or eight different ways. They were each so fun it was hard to decide! In the end B was very patient with me while I moved things around a readjusted it all. In the end this was the final design that I stuck with:

What do you think? I just love how it turned out. Plus, we can add to it as we find frames or whatever else that might work and just toss it in. The best thing about this to me is that it is versatile. We will be able to use this in any house that we live in because it isn't one gigantic piece of art, this is modular and therefore very flexible. This is the final product:

If you try out this project please let me know! I would love to hear how others do it. I hope you enjoyed this Wife to Wife Wednesday post and found it to be encouraging.