$11 Big Wooden Whale: The LAST (sniff) (at least for now) Nursery Post

Posted on by
Pin8K
Share5
Tweet
8K Shares

I think I first got the idea for making a big wooden whale while I was poking around looking at ocean animal stuff on Etsy and saw a few from various sellers on there. For prices like $80-90 + shipping (and shipping is a lot on a big wooden whale). I was pretty sure that if Dave and I combined forces, we could make a whale for a lot less than that.

And, look, we could!

It seems that the way our big nursery projects go is that every other project is more of a pain in the ass than I expect, and then the alternating ones are less so than I expect. Fortunately, we were due for easier than expected with the whale.

First we hit up Home Depot for the materials, which consisted of one 4 by 2 sheet of plywood (which cost about $10.50) and a can of Minwax dark walnut stain (which was just over $5, but we used very little of it, so I’m calling that the other 50 cents in our $11 whale).

Then we came home and I set to work sketching out a whale on the plywood. I’d spent a bit of time googling and looking at whale outlines and practicing drawing little ones to use as a template. I was a little intimidated by the prospect of free handing such a big whale–to the point where we briefly considered going to Dave’s school and using a projector there to blow my little practice whales up big. But leaving the house seemed like too much trouble, so I went with the just drawing it on the plywood plan. My original whale vision was longer and skinnier than what I wound up with. The proportions of the plywood forced me to either make a fatter whale or a less tall whale, and I wanted her tall enough to take up most of the space above the board and batten.

Apparently, I made faces like this while I drew her. There was much erasing and redrawing to try to get it just how I wanted. The tail was especially tricky.

And then Dave said, “umm, which of these lines am I supposed to cut on?” And suggested that perhaps I should go back with a marker and make just ONE whale outline for him to cut out. Gah. So demanding!

Then Dave took her down to the basement, got out the jigsaw, and started cutting.

We are very gendered in our whale-making division of labor. When I was in sixth grade, everyone had to take a six week “industrial arts” class. When it was time for me to use the power saw, I was so freaked out I was shaking, and everyone came over to stare at me and ask, “what’s wrong with HER?!” And, to this day, a power screwdriver is about as hard core as I’m comfortable getting with power tools. I can’t even watch Dave use the saw. I took this picture and then ran away.

Dave apologized because cutting the line for the mouth was a little tricky, and the whale wound up smiling at us a little. But I think it’s awesome. Who wants a grumpy whale?

Whale outline!

Then he sanded down the edges with the power sander.

Okay, so the original plan was that I would put a coat of stain on the whale, then I would paint it a light gray with my DIY chalk paint, then I would go back and distress it to let some of the stain show through.

Only then I started to put the stain on and immediately loved it that way.

I waited until the next day when it was dry and held it up to the wall to make sure, but, yeah….I totally changed my mind about the paint. There’s a LOT of painted wood in the nursery already, and I really like the one natural wood thing to give the room a little punch. And I like the look of stained wood against the Newburg Green. Also, less chance to mess the whale up if I eliminate one of the steps!

We considered a few different options for hanging the whale, but, since it was going to hang directly over our tiny baby, we decided we weren’t really comfortable with anything less than attaching it directly to the wall with heavy duty anchor screws, even though this meant drilling holes in our fresh whale. Dave even went with two of the 400 pound anchor screws for good measure. We didn’t weigh the whale, but I’m reasonably sure it’s less than 800 pounds.

Gus was really sad that we covered that one hole up, because it kind of looked like the whale’s eye.

Dave hung it up, countersunk the screws, filled them in with wood putty, then sanded and stained over them. You can see where they are if you know where to look, but they’re not, I don’t think, glaringly  obvious.

And, one more time, the finished whale!

We decided she was a girl and named her Martha, after Martha’s Vineyard.

Full nursery reveal is here

whale-tutorial

Sharing with:
Under the Table and Dreaming’s Sunday Showcase Party
Tuesday’s Treasures at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Tutorial and Tips at Home Stories A to Z
TwelveOEight’s Pretty Things Link Party
Hookin’ Up With House of Hepworths
Craftionary’s Friday Link Party
Design, Dining, and Diapers’ Inspiration Gallery
The Shabby Nest’s Frugal Friday
Chic on a Shoestring’s Flaunt It Friday
Tatertots and Jello’s Weekend Wrap Up Party
Funky Junk Interior’s Saturday Nite Special
Classy Clutter’s Spotlight Saturday

Creating with the Stars

Comments

$11 Big Wooden Whale: The LAST (sniff) (at least for now) Nursery Post — 42 Comments

    • Well, yes. Dave tells me we’ve had the jigsaw since before Ari was born. Apparently we bought it when we were going to make jigsaw puzzles for people for Christmas one year. Which is hilarious, because I remember that plan vaguely, but we never came anywhere close to actually doing it. But, yeah, Dave has a somewhat decent collection of power tools.

      Reply ↓

  9. I love it!!! It reminds me a mountain that we have nearby that looks like whale. Super cute! … oh and I love your concentration face with your cute preggo tummy! I can’t wait to see the final reveal!

    Reply ↓

  11. I think I’m a little obsessed with this whale. I’ve been itching to get a jigsaw so I can do some more heavy duty projects, but I’m sort of scared of them. But now I sort of want a giant animal on one of my walls…. man, life decisions are hard 🙂 haha

    Reply ↓

    • I generally make Dave do all the power tool stuff (not that he minds), but the jigsaw is so little and unintimidating as far as power tools go…maybe someday I’ll try it out myself. maybe. anyway, you definitely should go for it!

      Reply ↓

  18. What a great statement piece! My husband is also the handy-one between us…but he has yet to buy a jigsaw. I might need to show him this post and convince him we need it NOW! The shape, the stain, the blue wall behind it…all work perfectly. Excellent work.

    Warmly,
    Lauren
    The Thinking Closet

    Reply ↓

    • Thanks! Jigsaws are pretty inexpensive, so I think it’s worth picking one up….we had ours for years before we used it much at all, but we’ve used it several times in the past month now. Once you start, there’s no going back!

      Reply ↓

  21. The original pattern for whales like this came from antique weather vanes.
    A tip. Instead of stain, get some briwax with the stain already added to wax, or I’ve used burnt umber oil paint blended with Johnson’s floor wax. You apply it with a rag, let it dry, and buff out the wax to a satin sheen. You can then add more wax, stained or unstained, to give it more depth.

    Reply ↓

Like all human bloggers, I love comments :)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.