a sign of the times...

We have a sign!

You have no idea how big a thing this is for me. I've had the sign lurking in my brain for almost a year now, and it's just fallen to the bottom of the to-do list more times than I can count. Funny how that happens. That's why this sign project deserves its own blog entry. It was that long and that complicated.

Here's what we started with:

Pretty, right? I had to put the address out there somehow, so that was the temporary solution. Don't you love how the signpost is leaning back? So cute. What you can't see is that the post is bent at the bottom. also a cute bonus feature. There were several different possible solutions we devised. I had great visions in my head about my lovely roadside sign. All this was compounded by the growing sense of urgency I had regarding getting this whole thing done before we hosted a wedding out at the barn.

Yup, we know what happens when you make plans. Here's our progression.

Plan A: cut off the arm and twisted bracket, build a wooden sleeve around the post, and use an amazing bracket I found at the Bouckville Antiques Week to hold the sign. Great plan, except for the bend in the bottom of the post, which precluded doing that. I really liked Plan A. I even bought the wood and painted it in preparation. I'll use it somewhere else. Move on to Plan B.

Plan B: Pull the post and install a 6x6 wooden post, to which I can affix the aforementioned bracket. But, as it turns out, this post is very deep in the ground, and apparently filled with concrete, at least at the bottom. It was more than Nate and I could manage to pull it out. So we didn't. Move on to Plan C.

Plan C (you see where I'm going with this, right?): Cut the twisted bracket off the arm (thanks to our wonderful contractor, who had a battery-operated saws-all, which he provided so graciously--the driveway is longer than all our extension cords connected together), reset and paint the post, add hooks, and install my sign, eventually adding something as a post cap after the wedding. Plan C was enacted the week of the wedding, with us quickly finishing and hanging the sign the very morning of the wedding. Still not my favorite plan, but here's how it turned out, sign and all.

I am pretty proud of the sign itself, actually. Taking a drawing done by my talented daughter, I followed the format of our business cards and had the design printed twice on an outdoor vinyl banner. I cut it in half and mounted it on a board we put together with our new Kreg, and then we framed it with trim. Up it went, mere hours before the wedding.

It'll do for now. I still dream of the big wooden post with my lovely bracket...