His Word on Their Wall

First off, I want to say thank you to those of you who shared words of sympathy/encouragement with me after yesterday's post about our room-sharing shenanigans. I must admit -- when writing it, I did not anticipate that others would find my account of the process so funny. :) (Because I certainly haven't been laughing these past three weeks!) However, hearing that it made you guys giggle definitely helped me to gain some perspective and appreciate the humor in the situation. I know in the future I will look back on these days, and some of the things that drove me to tears will make me laugh like crazy -- at least, I hope so!

So, while we're on the subject, would you like a quick update on the latest of the Braly Boy misadventures???

Today the twosome woke up from nap and had been happily playing together in their room for about 20 minutes or so, when Kaiser came downstairs and informed me that Porter had "broken the yellow light". I didn't know for sure what he was referring to, so I dashed upstairs to find our youngest son holding the lamp that sits on their bedside table. Its shade was off, and the bulb was completely shattered and lay in a million pieces all over the table and carpet beside Kaiser's bed. Oh my heavens! Apparently Porter had thought it was a good idea to play on top of the furniture yet again, and must have somehow pulled or knocked the lamp down onto the wall or windowsill or something. Needless to say, he realized pretty darn quick, based upon my reaction, that that had not been a good idea. Both boys were ordered to stay in their beds until I could carefully pick up all of the big pieces of bulb, then vacuum and re-vacuum all the tiny shards of glass from the table and carpet. Even then, I was paranoid that I'd missed a sliver or two! Then the little criminal got another earful from me, and Kaiser was informed that if his brother was climbing on the furniture again, he had permission to scold him and was to come tell me immediately. Seriously, what am I going to do with these stinkers???

Okay, so on to the real reason for this post. Back when I first got crackin' making space for two in Kaiser's bedroom, I soon realized that the rearrangement of furniture meant the room would be left wanting in terms of wall decoration. Over the bed that Porter would now be sleeping in was the artwork I'd originally done two years ago, when we first moved Kaiser into his big boy room:

However, over Kaiser's new bed, there was a whole lot of NADA -- just a big, empty, off-white wall. Clearly, it needed an intervention, and quick. A while ago, I had come across a project that I really loved on one of the blogs I read. I tucked the idea in the back of my mind, knowing that I wanted to pull it off someday, but also knowing that I didn't have the time to make it (or the place to hang it) right then. When the need suddenly arose for a large piece of artwork for the boys' room, I knew exactly what was going up on that wall -- GOD'S WORD. 

I went searching for a perfect Bible verse for our two sons, and it didn't take me too terribly long to land upon 1 Timothy 6:11.

But you, man of God, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. 

Brett and I agreed right away that this was the one. It would become our prayer for both Kaiser and Porter -- that they would be passionate about pursuing Christ and desire to live lives that glorify Him in every way.

Once I had their verse, I got busy tallying up letters to determine how many As, Bs, and Cs I needed. Truth be told, the hardest part of this whole process was buying these silly adhesive vinyl letters and numbers. I didn't have any luck at Office Max or Staples like I'd hoped, and though Michaels had what I needed, the price there was outrageous! I thought I'd struck gold with a Marketplace seller on Amazon.com, then ended up being sent the wrong items and had to hound the company with phone calls for over a week to finally learn that the letters they advertised were not in stock. They issued me a refund, for which I was grateful, because after talking to several people at a call center in India, I really thought I was going to get ripped off there for a while! After being delayed for over two weeks with the Amazon mishap, I finally found what I needed for a reasonable price from this site. Within a couple of days, I had the correct letters in hand and was back in business! 

From that point on, things were pretty smooth sailing. I cut out my 80 letters, 4 numbers, 7 commas, and 3 periods, and did a trial run on some drawing paper to figure out spacing.

The next day, we went to Home Depot for a 28" x 42" sheet of plywood. Brett suggested that he use a router on the edges of the wood, which added a little bit of interest and made it look more finished. After he'd worked his magic with the router and sander, I primed and painted it with the same off-white that is on the bedroom wall. Then came measuring and drawing horizontal lines. Late one night, while I was watching the Olympics, I got started sticking letters; soon a couple of hours had disappeared, and this was laying on my kitchen table:

Up next -- spray paint! I had purchased a can of Rust-oleum's Painter's Touch Ultra Cover in Eden, and it took several light coats of it before I felt comfortable that every square inch was sufficiently covered. I ran a fan in the garage to help promote drying. On Monday night, a couple of hours after I'd applied my final coat, I was feeling really curious and figured it wouldn't hurt to peel off just one letter...

I was so excited by what I saw that before I knew it, I had a big ole ball of sticky vinyl at my feet and was viewing the (almost) finished product! Just a couple of letters needed some touching up; other than that, everything looked nice and crisp! Then tonight, my rockstar hubby finished installing the D-rings and hanging wire on the back of the wood and, with a little guidance from me, got the sign in place on the wall above Kaiser's bed. Here is the finished product, in all its glory:

Brett and I are so very pleased with how it turned out, and, more importantly, the boys love it. Kaiser seems eager to read the words of "his Bible verse" (right now, he knows "gentleness"), and Porter likes naming the letters. :) We have every intention of saying it with them -- and praying it over them -- daily. Now that I've completed this project for our boys, I'm thinking our daughter might just need a special verse hanging above her crib, too...