How-to: Hang a Giant Map

My husband has had this awesome map of The Essential Geography of the United States of America for several months now. It’s a map that Slate called “The Greatest Paper Map of the United States You’ll Ever See“, which immediately appealed to my husband’s appreciation for cartographically sound maps. That’s my guy!

The problem with amazing giant maps is how hard it is to hang them without dropping a huge stack of cash on custom framing. When my husband convinced me that maps should be an essential decorating element in our living room, I put my crafty skills to work.

Supplies

12 binder clips

2, 1/2″ thick x 48″ long dowels (My map was about as wide as my dowels were long, approximately 50 inches. If your poster is bigger, you might want to spend some time finding a dowel that’s the right size for your needs.)

12 eye screws

hacksaw

string that doesn’t stretch too much

a freaking giant map or poster

Directions

Sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you. Hold your hacksaw, teeth side up, between your legs. Carefully saw a line through the center of each end of one dowel by moving it back and forth over the teeth. This method sounds a little crazy, but it’s a lot safer than using the saw normally. I almost messed up my thumb really bad, believe me!

Knot your string at each end and secure it to each end of the dowel as shown. I used fishing line in my finished project, but opted for bright yarn for demonstration’s sake in the photos.

Screw half of your eye screws into one dowel, evenly spaced apart. Screw the rest of your screws in a similar fashion to the other dowel.

Pop a wing off of a binder clip and hook it into an eye screw. Reattach it to the binder clip.

Attach the rest of your binder clips to all of the eye screws. When all of the clips are attached, twist the eye screws so that the binder clips all hang facing the same direction.

Clip your map to all of the binder clips and use the string to hang it up. Simple! I really like how bookish the map looks hung with school supplies. The dowels harken back to the rolled maps we used to have in my elementary school, which as a Librarian, I love.

You can visit the cartographer’s website to learn more about him or to purchase the map featured in today’s project.