The new kitchen has the perfect location, right over the table. But how to hang it?
I'd seen this project, the Leather Belt Ikea Clock Hanger, and decided to try it out. I wasn't inclined to use new belts, but I did run into some trouble right from the start. I could get two belts for $3 at Goodwill. But no two were the same in either color or width. I wanted brown, because black was hard to tell that it was a belt, and the black belts they had on hand were low quality. I ended up with a very long brown belt and a second black belt with a similar size and shape buckle.
First I measured out how long the belts should be, cut the brown belt and made a hole for the buckle with my drill, and cut off the excess past where the belt would tuck into the little leather loop. So far, so good. I assessed the other belt, and yes, it would have to go. Looking carefully at the original brown belt, I realized that the leather that went around the prong was single thickness. So I cut the side seams, measured how far down the folded over part should be to accommodate the buckle and, in this case, a little metal loop and two seams. Cut the back layer of the belt, and made a hole for the prong with my drill.
Here I made a judgement. I have heavy duty rug thread, but I couldn't find it, and I decided not to let the perfect get in the way of the good enough. I have leather needles for my sewing machine, but getting it all out and set up just to sew two one-inch seams felt excessive. I did find my awl, though, even with the big move, so I felt pretty lucky about that. I took a spare piece of wood and used the awl to make eight pilot holes for the needle. I could have been a lot more careful at this point, but I was feeling lazy, so I made them mostly straight and didn't worry about it.
I put the buckle prong through the hole, folded over the leather and sewed the seam closest to the buckle. I whip stitched the first stitch over the edge a couple of times leaving a long tail and backstitched the seam, whipped the other edge and backstitched back. If you're careful, you can lift the leather and peek at where the hole on the other layer is before pulling the thread tight, making the whole thing a bit easier than stabbing through each hole and two layers blind.
I installed the metal loop and did the same, although I made an improvement by backstitching and repeating each backstitch two or three times for strength. It made for a much stronger and neater seam than the first.
I measured the length, and by happy chance there was already a hole on the second belt to line up with the first one. I was loosely checking the instructions on how to make a belt-hung shelf, but cutting the belts at the top didn't seem necessary to me, so I buckled both belts, carefully folded the tops and drilled through both layers of the fold for the mounting screws.
I realized that there were two small nail holes already in place in the wall. I double checked with the stud finder that they went into studs, and while I was at it, I downloaded a level app and checked that they were at the same height. I was pretty happy about the existing location, but if it had been weird, I would have gotten a wall anchor or two and put the holes evenly across the top. I made a very light mark on the wall at the center point, and another on the steel knife blank.
I used 1¾-inch wallboard screws to mount the straps, which are nice because they are black, but something decorative like a gold color would have been nice, too. I unbuckled the straps, lined up the center mark with the center mark on the wall, and re-buckled. I was a little concerned that the shape of the knife cutouts where they rested on the loops might make the whole sheet unlevel, but it didn't . If it had, I would have measured again and drilled another buckle hole where it should be and re-hung.
It looks really good.
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