The fortuitiousness of extra materials

Boy that’s a fancy title. 

I have a felt banner from college that I never had a good way to display but have always wanted to put up somewhere. It doesn’t help that the banner never wanted to lay flat on anything and curls up from the bottom when it’s on a wall. I had it stashed on a shelf in the garage with the intention of getting around to it someday.

Thankfully, I bought more 1x2” than I needed for the two floater frames, and had a moment of inspiration when I realized I was possibly looking at a solution to how to hang this banner. It seems the banner’s “someday” had finally come. 

Quickly eyeballing a frame, with some glue and joiners this was an easy build. The trick, like always, is in the details. I went with the gunstock stain b/c I still love how the table looks, and not everything in the house has to be walnut.

That was quick.

A few quick poly coats for shine and voila, the frame is done. 

late-night staining after everyone else has gone to bed has become a regular event

Without plans I wasn't sure if this would work, but the top and bottom of the frame got two additional runners across to give the banner something extra to anchor to. In the end it wound up working pretty well.

Do I turn a room in to a Notre Dame room now? Probably not.

To get the banner up I went low-tech. I thought about stringing picture wire across the top to hang it, but instead just taped it to some cardboard cut smaller than the frame and then taped that to the top of the frame. The wife immediately noticed it doesn’t quite fill the frame (and pulled the whole thing off the frame, thank you very much), but again I think that’s b/c the banner itself isn’t square and wants to curl up. It's stapled in now and hasn't moved since. In any case, it’s a step up from being balled up on a garage shelf, now I just need to get a thumbs up on somewhere to hang it.