How Many Engineers Does it Take to Hang a Picture?
Great moments in building history: Always remember Rule No. 1
With my finely honed eye, I can eyeball the center of a 14-ft. livingroom wall with only an eighth-inch margin of error. To me, hanging a picture is a two-minute job as easy as falling off my diet. But I’m married to an engineer who unequivocally rejects my eyeballing skills as substandard industry practice.
Yet being an independent woman, I thought, I don’t need his help to hang a picture, so I assembled my tools—a nail and a hammer—grabbed the picture, and eyeballed the perfect spot to hang it. Using my fingernail, I pressed a small indentation in the wall just above the edge of the picture frame, then started to hammer in the nail about 3 in. below my mark.
At the sound of the first hammer blow, my husband ran into the living room, shouting, “What are you doing?” You’d think I’d taken up chainsaw juggling.
“Hanging a picture,” I said, stating the obvious.
“That’s not how you hang a picture.”
I rolled my eyes, an ocular skill I’ve perfected since my marriage. “No, this is exactly how I hang a picture.”
“Well, it’s wrong,” he stated flatly. “You’d better let me do that.”
I knew I should have waited until he took out the trash. I could have had that picture on the wall before the screened door slammed.
To avoid saying something I’d surely regret later, I repeated Rule No. 1 for living with an engineer: Remember why you married him. He’s loving, honest, loyal, and protective. Face it, he’s a German shepherd with an advanced degree. As I watched my engineer husband assemble the tools to do the job right, I repeated Rule No. 2 for living with an engineer: Accept what you cannot change.
Working alone, I needed: 1. Hammer; 2. Nail.
My engineer needed: 1. Pencil; 2. Hammer; 3. Brass European nails; 4. Brass European picture hook; 5. Blue masking tape; 6. Measuring tape; 7. Level, preferably laser; 8. Stud finder, electronic; 9. Stranded wire to make custom picture hanger; 10. Wire cutter; 11. Needle-nose pliers to fashion picture hanger; 12. Self-adhesive felt picture bumpers; 13. Touch-up paint, just in case wall gets dinged; 14. Paintbrush for above touch-up; 15. Spackle, just in case hole gets put in wrong place; 16. Spackling tool, see above; 17. Sandpaper, also see above; 18. Paper towels; 19. Spray cleaner; 20. Vacuum cleaner; 21. Drop cloth; 22. Safety glasses.
After laying a drop cloth and arranging his equipment, my husband donned his safety glasses and got to work replacing the hanger on the back of the picture with a custom version. Next, he measured the length of the wall, and dividing by two, placed a piece of blue tape on that spot. He then measured from the floor to eye level and placed a second piece of tape across the first. To recap, after a total elapsed time of 92 minutes, the wall sported a tiny blue cross.
Then he measured from the wire hanger to the top edge of the frame and transferred this mark to the wall using a third piece of tape, now forming a Russian Orthodox cross.
He grabbed his pencil, and after marking the center of the third piece of tape and checking it with the stud finder, he hammered in the brass nails securing the European picture hook to the wall. He then put felt bumpers on the back of the picture frame, shined the glass, removed the drop cloth, and vacuumed up the drywall dust.
While he put away some of his tools, I hung the picture and stepped back to admire his work. It was perfect. It hung exactly at eye level, if your name were Toulouse-Lautrec.
Quickly, using my fingers, I yanked out the brass European nails, found my original fingernail tick mark, hammered the picture hook back into the wall, and hung the picture just as my engineer returned.
“There,” he said proudly, doing a final adjustment with his laser level. “That’s how you hang a picture.”
Remembering Rule No. 1, I hugged him and said, “Thanks, honey. It looks great.”
Drawing by: Jackie Rogers
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