The map that I got the idea off of was only of the United States, but I didn't want to limit ourselves (especially since we currently live in Alaska which is not exactly on a map of the lower 48...and if so, it tends to be just off the coast of Arizona) so I decided to invest in a world map.
Now, this seemed to be a fairly simple, cheap project. I found a really cool map online for $12 and ordered it. I was excited because it was big (48"x36" to be exact), but not until it came in did I realize how big. But no biggie, I was going to mount it on cork board tiles, such as these:
anyways. So the bigger the better because I could add boards as needed.
Well, we decided mounting them straight to the wall would not exactly make this piece of art relocate-able (yes, I think I just made up my own word) in a few years...so we headed to Home Depot and purchased a large piece of particle board to glue them to. After much debate and a few hours later, we had cut up the cork board squares to the appropriate size and mounted them to the particle board. After even more discussion, we discovered a way to mount the particle board to the wall by the stairs.
So many, many hours later it resulted in this:
Ta-da! We were so proud of our creative abilities and excitedly put our pins into the map. We got to enjoy if for about 3 hours.
Then we went to sleep and awoke to this:
Ok, so we needed better glue to mount the squares to the particle board. That I can work on.
But, then we went to work that day...
...and came home to this...
Clearly this project wasn't working!
My quick, cheap project had already taken like 10x's as much time and money as I had planned on investing in it and it kept falling apart!
We let it sit there for several days...defeating us each time we went up and down the stairs...until we randomly went to Michael's one day. Just as we walked in the door, it was like a light was shining from above onto this:
A large framed cork board. Matt kindly asked if I had even attempted to find one in the first place...and I had, but in my defense they were very expensive online. But this one was cheaper (about $25) than the cork board tiles we had already purchased and glued together. It was a bittersweet discovery.
We purchased it and brought it home...and surprise - the map we already had was too big. I should have expected that much.
So, back to ebay I went and found a smaller version for about the same price and waited for it to ship.
About a month later, we finally got our new map mounted on the wall. We weren't as excited the next time around as we marked all the places - via color-coded pins - we have a) traveled to together, b) lived together, c) individually traveled to since high school. Though I do think it looks rather nice - even after all that.
Hopefully, as time passes we will fill up the map...and laugh at how it started.
But for now, we have an extra world map if anyone is looking for one. :)
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