What's stuck up on your ceiling?

As old-fashioned as it seems, my Wife had a hope chest sitting at the foot of her bed since she was a young lass, growing up in OKC tract home 70's suburbia.

In it were stored items she collected and would use in her future adult days as a happy homemaker.

Her stints away from home in college and grad school tapped into the chest for daily use stuff - cups, bowls, plates, etc., but the chest and a few contents actually remained intact until the day we moved back to Oklahoma and her folks brought it up to our new digs.

Sure, the stuff she saved was tacky, and dated, and most of the practical items were already part of some landfill due to their use and abuse through my Wife's early adulthood days. But a few items remained, as did the chest, which now proudly sits at the foot of our oldest daughter's bed, awaiting the placement of items for her own future days.

Prize of the collection was a scrapbook my Wife had made, consisting of magazine clippings, articles, and advertisements, appropriately titled, "My Dream Wedding and Home."

Recalling that my Wife and I grew up in the heady days of the 70's and 80's, you can only imagine the choices she had to work with when designing her perfect wedding ceremony and future household.

It's a hoot.

Which brings me to the guts of this post, being, my Wife is a pack rat-tess of the highest order. And when I write order, I don't mean "ordered." Far from it. We have things she's been collecting since the beginning days of her hope chest -- all with the stated caveat of, "someday we'll use these for..."

I knew this quality of my beloved going into our marriage, and have therefore sacrificed some of my collecting desires (still have my Mad Magazine's but will have to put off adding anymore Precious Moments Beer Steins to my stash for awhile).

Her prophetic argument of using her collectibles for a practical and/or decorative use has proven correct just enough times during our years together, that her statement continues to remain valid. Thus her collecting continues.

Today's point of evidential order, the recently completed tin tray ceiling in our new upstairs playroom.

The raw material for the project were decorative tin trays (department store cafeteria items circa 40's-50's) that Wifey's been collecting (along with her once partner in thrift/collectible store crime, Traci in LA) for about 13 years now.


The first set she found in a thrift store for pennies, and once she found the next 4, 5, 7 and 12 in the set, the hunt was on.

Ebay was scoured.
No thrift store shelf was safe.
No antique mall booth was left unscathed.
And in the end, the final numbers came from Traci's Mom herself, donating her prize trays to the project.

Fast forward to a few months ago, when we found the trays in a box we were just getting around to unpacking, and the ideas started flowing.

The end result of my Wife wanting to have a tin ceiling of some sort in the house, combined with utilizing a beloved collection from her recent past, is the project/product you see here.

It took a bit of engineering and basic math to get it done, but my intrepid F-i-L who has yet to say "nay" to any of his daughter's wacky home decorating ideas, was up for the task.


I still need to do some touch up work on the nail holes and seams, but once that's done, the project should be complete. The lamp is a dumpster find, using a color scheme from both the playroom and the adjoining bathroom.

Big thanks go out to Traci and Tak!

Now if only I can find something decorative and practical to do with my 30-pin simm ram chip collection sitting in a shoe box under my bed...