Often late at night while Matt sleeps I search CraigsList for my latest find.
One night I stumbled upon an ad that had at least 50 old marquee letters.
The seller had them all laid out in his yard spelling out different words and the price could not be beat.
So I do what I always do and forwarded the listing to Matt with a little note, “What do you think?”
Much to my surprise I woke up the next morning to the response “Awesome, call them!”
I called the gentleman and Matt and I went out intending to buy 5 maybe 6 marquee letters and ended up coming home with a car full.
Matt’s family has an annual Christmas tradition called “Make a Gift” It is so fun every year you get a different person’s name to make a gift for.
It can be anything you want from homemade cleaning products to a violin (yup I said violin) anything goes, only rule you have to make it yourself! This year my make a gift victim was Matt’s sister Sarah. As soon as I saw the metal marquee B on the lawn I knew I had to get it for her and give it a makeover.
The letter had old dirty caulking, even after a cleaning it was still grungy. Matt helped me out by using the a heat gun and a speckle knife to clean all of the old gunk out.
I wanted the B to light up like the old fashioned marquee signs, meaning I would need to drill holes in the aluminum.
Before I started drilling I marked out my holes, trying to use some of the existing holes.
I used a drill press to cut the holes.
I steadied the B while my father operated the drill.
Once all of the holes were cut out I used a Dremel to smooth down the sides.
I wanted to do a dry fit of the lights to make sure the placement was right.
I took the lights apart, reassembled them in the B and realized I had too many holes.
No worries though that is what BONDO is for!
After the bondo was set up (about 20 min) it was ready for sanding and painting.
One problem, the temperature decided to drop over 30 degrees in one afternoon. It was freezing cold and we were having 50 – 60mph wind gusts!
And I needed to spray paint my B white so I could finish in time for Christmas Eve …
So I did want any insane normal person does and I created a spray paint booth in my kitchen.
While this did solve my problem I do NOT recommend anyone do this.
Even though we had ample ventilation it was still had huge risk of the over spray going EVERYWHERE!
Seriously don’t try this unless you absolutely have to …
Once I had the marquee B painted (and paint cured) I used a silicone type product to hold the light socket in place.
After 16 hours of dry time the letter was ready to be put together and plugged in!
Time for Lights OFF!
The marquee B turned out great, you can hardly see the places I filled in with Bondo, and the glow is SOFT.
The light are a set of 10 Christmas lights I picked up this summer at Target, best part is if they burn out they are easily replaced!
Sarah opened her Make a Gift on Christmas Eve and told me she loved it (yay!)
Now I just have to make one for myself and I will be set!
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I love this project!
Awesome, and I love that you tented up your entire kitchen to paint it.
Love this project. You guys remind me of my husband and I … when we were younger and cuter! I found you from the Looksi ambassadors group and can’t wait to see what you do next!
That is THE COOLEST GIFT. Ugh I want one so bad now. 🙂 By the way, that is some serious dedication to your craft to make a spray paint booth in your kitchen! Crazy!
Wow! What a great find! I just saw something like this on the The Chew yesterday. They made the letters out of foam board and poster board. They then added Christmas lights. Great find!!! Thanks for sharing…
~ Darlene
Great find! Hope you picked up a couple letters for yourself too.
This is one of the coolest projects in town! I really think it turned out so neat.
I am soooo in love with this! Now I need to find a big marquee letter!!!
Woooha! I need a killer drilling machine like that! The make over is amazing! Thank you so much for sharing, marquees are always fantastic!
Love these! What a find!
Oh Wow! That is the coolest thing ever! I really wish I could find some huge letters….I just love them. Great job. The lighting really brings it up a notch…or 10!
This is so cool. I love letters! I think a whole room full of letters would be awesome. If you get a chance I would love for you to come link up at my Tuesday Pin Party.
http://sarahdawndesigns.blogspot.com/2013/02/pintastic-tuesday-link-party-27.html#.USP_sKWkrCc
Um, yes – this is incredible. I love it!! Haha and awesome for making a spray painting area in your kitchen. I’ve done something similar to that before… the house smelled like paint for weeks. The husband banned me from spray prainting inside ever again, haha. But I loved having our windows open all the time 🙂
You are one talented lady :o) I love everything monogrammed!
I am so impressed with your power tool knowledge! I don’t even know what a drill press is. 🙂 This turned out great and made a fabulous gift. Good job!
What a great idea! I never find anything cool on our local Craigslist! Just pressboard dressers from the 70’s and rusty refrigerators.
Your paint booth cracked me up, I can SO see myself doing something like that. I can also see my hubby having a stroke if I did!
that’s awesome, and a great find!
wow, so cool! i’m glad you have the picture with Sarah bc I thought it was much bigger! so, if this isn’t too personal, how much did you pay for each of the letters??? i love good finds!
Truly awesome!!
You did a fabulous job restoring the sign! What a great find! Stopping over from TT& Jello!
Amazing job! Visiting from the Tater Tots and Jello Link up. Your kitchen painting set up cracked me up b.c I have so done something that nuts especially b/c we live in Canada and spray painting outside in the winter is just ridiculous.
You did a great job restoring the letter. Your kitchen spray painting booth had me giggling. We’ve all done something “interesting” over the years when DIY is involved!
I hope you’ll drop by to see My Daughter’s Master Bath Redo – #83 at Met Monday.
Allison
Atticmag
Great makeover! How cool you found them on Craigslist. Love it.
I absolutely love this! I host a DIY link party every Monday and would love for you to join! http://homecomingmn.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-diyers-link-party.html
I love this! How fun! 🙂
I featured this on my blog today! You can check it and grab a Featured button here: http://practicallyfunctional.net/2013/02/the-fun-in-functional-link-party-39/
Jacque–Love the marquee makeover! You did great job. I am puzzled about the round bulbs??? did you take some apart?
catching you!
gail
Hey Gail! Thanks so much! The round white part of the light is actually a plastic cover that just screws off the metal base and then you can pull the Christmas lights out. It appears as if I have uploaded the wrong triple image … it should be Light, metal base, round plastic bulb … I’m going to have to fix that!
That’s awesome! What a great find and fun DIY – great gift too!