Ah, the moose head… Let me tell you a bit about how it took a year of waiting for the right deal, a few months of waiting for it to arrive, and then finally another year before we could find a suitable
place to hang his shiny head.
Lana had her eye on this guy for quite a while. Periodically reminding me how much she loved him and knew exactly where he was going to live in our home. I agreed, we probably needed a stately white moose head. So, Lana kept watch from her shopping blind, waiting patiently to pull the trigger. Then, one day, without warning, she announced he was ours.
We unwrapped our newest prize to find… a broken antler. Oh joy of joys!
Luckily, we had ordered some weirdo, fix all, putty off the TV. I mashed it together with a rubber mallet, (I didn’t feel like my hands were mashing adequately) and jammed it into and around the offending antler. 60 minutes or so later, a little light sanding and a quick pass with some glossy white spray paint, and our moose was worthy of a place in ol’ Teddy Roosevelt’s collection!
But where to put him. We had recently done a little work on our mud room, and with the cedar interior, we thought it would make a fitting home. So, I took some measurements, decided he wasn’t going to fit, and proceeded to try and hang him anyway. After exhausting myself and drilling 4 unnecessary holes in our wall, I took him upstairs, removed his antlers and placed him gently in a wicker basket full of sheets.
And there he lay until a few days ago when we sat up in our chairs and declared that we would not be beaten by a lacquer moose head!
Lana and I made a decision that right above our fireplace, on our newly painted wall would be a perfect place to display our once again beloved friend. So I got my drill and some screws that I very scientifically tested in the hanging brackets on the back of his head.
And then I hit a snag.
On my first attempt hanging him up I just did some guess work on where the holes needed to be drilled into the wall. Hence I ended up with twice as many holes as mounting brackets. I needed to find a way to mark where the mounting brackets fell on the wall without x-ray vision.
And believe me I tried a few ridiculous things (like cramming a pencil in the bracket and pretending it would stay level and true while I marked the position).
I ended up getting some painters tape and laying one strip the full length of his neck and another one right over the mounting brackets. I poked some holes where the screws would eventually need to land, removed the tape, and placed it on the wall carefully remembering to check my placement with a level. The tape very kindly told me where to drill and I only ended up with two holes in the wall and a level moose!
And yes, I know that anyone with any experience (or keeps instruction booklets) would probably have a better/quicker/less contrived way of marking the wall, but this made my day.
And I wish to pass it on to you, dear reader, to use as you see fit.