Marking The Studs

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With the onset of things like Instagram, it’s kinda rare that you see really short updates on blogs anymore. But something happened recently that was funny enough to warrant its own archive in my blog’s history.

To give you some background, I’ve been working on a new plan for better organizing my garage. With my home becoming a space where I’m no longer fixing drywall and can make more of my own furniture, I need room to create a little sawdust. With K moving in, he has a few of his own tools that need a new home as well.

Between all of the outdoor tools and the mower, I’m hyper aware of how much extra space I could use if I moved all of the outdoor equipment to its own space. It’s the main motivation behind getting the new shed built. Also, I have an awesome new set of battery powered outdoor tools thanks to my partnership with STIHL (more on that very soon!), and I just don’t have the space anymore.

I am trying, little by little, to get small corners of the garage improved, such as the small expanse of wall immediately to the left of the door from the kitchen. It’s about 14 inches from the door casing, so I created a narrow workbench table that fits in the nookish space and runs the full length of the wall. If you saw my DIY power carving post or video, then you will have already seen glimpses of it in use. Nothing like a project to immediately confirm that I need to make more improvements! It was SO nice to not be working on the floor!

So, that’s what I’m setting out to do: one tiny organization project at a time, and mostly with scrap wood. I casually asked K if he would help me out by marking the studs along the same wall while I ran to the store. The goal is to cut and hang French cleats for battery chargers and long clamps that take up too much space on my pegboard wall.

I asked him for this favor, and then totally forgot, distracted by whatever it was I was already working on. It was DAYS LATER that I walked back into the garage to find what K actually did:

Oh, he marked the studs, alright. Every. single. one. of the studs are marked this way. That takes some dedication, for sure. If you watched that carving video, you might have even seen them and not realized what they are. They’re curling a bit from the humidity now, but I plan to keep them up a little longer.

That, my friends, is just one small story about the boy who now lives in my house. Because he’s pretty good at a clever prank. I’d like to repay the favor, though. So:

1. I’d love your stories about some really good pranks you’ve pulled (for coughcough, ideas and such)
2. I’ve created this handy stud-marking downloadable for those of you who would like to be extra and mark YOUR home’s studs in the same way.

Since marking them with K’s face is super weird, I took some images from a free photo database instead and created two versions. One is for those of you who don’t like beefcake; one for those who are my level of crassness. I named both the horse and the dude Mark (get it?).

Mark I printable

Mark II printable

If anyone takes me up on this offer, please tag me on Instagram at @uglyducklingDIY when you use it, along with the hashtag #myUDH. This is just for funsies, so I will laugh my ass off if anyone actually does it.

Enjoy. ?