Culture No. 30: Winning!

I have terrible luck when it comes to winning contests. During my entire childhood career, I won exactly one coloring contest, which Sister V. won as well - there's a photo somewhere of us touting our respective Crayola prizes – and to this day I question the legitimacy of my victory. Did Mama V. swing by Ames on the way home and pick up an extra set of crayons to keep me quiet? Quite possibly.

Last year, I won my first blog giveaway: a toddler’s bathrobe, which – while super cute – was obviously not something I had any use for. So I gave it to my cousin for his daughter and stopped entering giveaways for things I didn't need. It worked. My bad luck returned and my blog giveaway winning streak ended at one. Until now.

Giveaways for things I can use (or really, really want ;) are totally still fair game, so recently I entered a contest on one of my favorite blogs, Design Mom, and won a mural from Modern Murals. Sweet! I knew just the place for it!

While the wall at the foot of our bed continues to rock this photo collage I put up in June, the opposite wall was still really, really bare - the perfect spot for a new piece of art. Bert and I spent a few hours on the Modern Mural website agonizing between something Foster-esque (his favorite architect) versus something warmer, and eventually decided on the later. We chose #4301, which sports yellow gingko leaves on a dark, wood plank background. The mural was here within a week (Our UPS man was so impressed I got a package from Cali. Ah, NEPA…) and unboxed in minutes. And then it sat on the floor. For a week or so. Or more. Go me.

Finally I got tired of tripping over it, so last night I conscripted Bert and his drill for an hour of hanging fun. Usually I try to hang pictures around 57” on center – the “museum standard,” so I’ve googled, although I’ve never asked any of my museum friends if it’s true, so take that with a grain of salt – but because our headboard takes up the lower portion of the wall, Bert pointed out that it might be better to center the mural between the top of the headboard and the bottom of the molding. So I made a ‘mural mock-up’ out of newspaper and went to town:

The consensus? To stick with the 57" mark. It's hard to tell from the itty-bitty photo, but centering the mural between the headboard and the ceiling made the room feel really small. And it's small enough as it is. ;) A few off-the-mark holes later - if you have to spackle one, you might as well spackle three, right? - and we were in business! (And on a side note, that baseball bat is a souvenir Bert and I picked up on our 'engagement weekend' in Cooperstown, NY. Not a reflection on the safety of our neighborhood! ;)

I love it. The scale is perfect and the extra color is very, very welcome. We still may be curtain-less, but at least the walls are done, right? :) I'd like to buy a pair of clip-on lights for the headboard so we don't have to get up and down at night to turn off the lights, but I struggled to find something reasonable that doesn't scream "college student!" or "architect!" (No offense to my fellow archies, I've had enough of those tensor lights for about five lifetimes.) Any ideas? Other than the Clapper? ;)

(And a big thank you to Modern Mural and Design Mom. You totally made our week! :D)