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There is nothing like the sublime satisfaction of a successfully completed home improvement project. Back in August I talked receiving my inherited Frankoma Political Mug collection from mom and while she was here back in October she and I tried to hang the collection but encountered a snag:
The mugs were to go on the wall in picture b. but after we had done all of the necessary measuring, plotting, planning, stud finding and thinking, I took down the picture that was hanging there and saw that very lovely plug said picture was hiding. "Oh, now I remember why I hung this here. Damn." Project on hold. So here it is...half a year later and I realized that I had another very nice wall space hiding behind the book shelf you see in picture a.
Project resumes. I spent an afternoon clearing and cleaning, huffing and puffing, and with J's help we moved the bookshelf over to the area in picture b. I have to interject for a second and acknowledge that this project would not have gotten anywhere at all without the all-around studliness and home-improvement prowess of my man. So Thank You, Jeffery. The next step was to screw the wood supports in to the studs in the wall:
At first I was just going to screw cup hooks into the drywall itself and hang the mugs just so, but Mom schooled me in the way of perforated drywall, physics, and the effect of copious amount weight thus explaining that I would have a GIGANTIC hole in my wall and a bevy of broken mugs. So once the supports were hung I painted the screws black, measured and marked where the hooks would be, and drilled the pilot holes. I also had to spray paint 42 white cup hooks black:
And then finally....the mugs were unwrapped and hung:
Yes, there is one missing. I knew this, and I guess I was under the mistaken impression that I was dealing with complete sets and that one set was missing its mate. As I was unwrapping the newspaper from the mugs I began to realize that not everyone had a buddy and I remembered that Mom had told me that my Grandmother, her mom, started to collect the elephants in 1968 (white one 4th row, 4th column) which was the first year they came out. My mom started collecting the donkeys when they started appearing in 1975 (yellow one 1st row, 4th column) and that the collections where eventually combined and here we are today. To fill in the missing spot I think I am going buy the 2009 donkey (hopefully) from this upcoming election. My contribution to the third generation collective. They print the names of the President and Vice-President on the mug of the election year:
I wonder what color it will be.
**UPDATE**
I had to go back and see what exactly I do have, and what, if anything, was missing. I had arranged them by color, so I didn't really care at the time, but here is the tally:
Missing Years 1968-1993 (Note Donkeys didn't appear until 1975)
1982- Donkey
1987- Donkey
1988- Elephant
1991- Elephant
I am not going to get too worked up about it, I am pretty satisfied with what I have since they are items that were given to me, and not ones that I felt the need to aquire, and really one can only collect so many things that will eventually have to be dusted so I am trying not to give myself more work than I already have. Plus, I noticed that all four of these are available on eBay. You know....just in case.
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