I ♥ maps.
Probably because I love to travel.
I’ve been blessed to travel a lot and just looking at a globe makes my heart warm with memories.
{my traveling days have gone the way of kids and life on a budget}
I knew when we settled into The Southern House that I wanted to use maps in the decor.
{but let’s be honest, maps are totally in right now so maybe i’m just a sucker for a trend}
I didn’t want just any map.
I wanted a vintage pull-down school house map.
Being back in the land of antique stores meant that there was a possibility I’d find one.
The wall space behind my couch was just screaming for a large-scale map of some form.
And then I saw one online that I really wanted and alas, it cannot be found.
It’s a vintage Denoyer-Geppert chalkboard map and it is dreamy.
So I tried to find a suitable substitute.
Restoration Hardware made one once upon a time for $$$$.
Honestly it wasn’t as cool.
I liked the vintage aspect of the Denoyer Geppert map.
So I started looking at all the other vintage pull-down maps and what killed me was the hideous color schemes.
I found some on Etsy that I liked but nowhere near the scale I was looking for.
I realized that all I really wanted was a large scale, rustic looking map in a muted color palette.
So finally I just resolved to making one.

it needs to be ironed again
This is what I came up with.
It’s 45″x60″
{large scale}
and it has a muted color palatte.
{so my living room doesn’t actually look like a schoolhouse}
Bonus: It’s made of fabric!
{i’m a textile junkie so it gives me a wee bit of a fabric high}
I bought a cheap wall map from Amazon (although any office or school supply store carries them).
I made sure that the dimensions were in the range I was looking for.
I also busted out my Kona Color Card and painstakingly spent a night trying to figure out what solids to use for the states.
I also bought some Heat & Bond at JoAnn’s while I was in HotLanta.
I traced the mirror image of each state onto the paper side of the Heat & Bond.
Then I ironed the states with a large boarder to the fabric.
(hint: it’s easier to assign each fabric color to one of the colors on the map, that way you don’t have to figure out how to arrange the fabrics)
After I ironed the state to the fabric I cut it out making sure to leave a portion of the state with extra fabric so I could overlap them on the map.
This is about the point where I was cursing any state that had a river as a border.
{i officially hate any state on the mississippi river, the red river, the ohio river and all of new england}
It was helpful to have the map on the floor as I cut so I could figure out what part of the state to cut exactly and what part to leave to be overlapped.
{basically i created giant USA jigsaw puzzle out of fabric}
Once the states were all cut I traced the proper US map image onto a 45″x60″ piece of linen I had lying around with disappearing ink.

tracing on the sliding glass door
This served as my guide to line up all the states.
Then I ironed and ironed and ironed some more.
Heat & Bond is really strong but I wanted to make sure it was all secure so I sewed the state borders as well.
Bonus: it gave it some added visual interest.
This was a wee bit difficult.
[see previous statement of states with rivers as borders]
As you can see from the picture, I didn’t sew on the exact state line, but sewed to the side of the line.
Because every state technically overlapped another state everything was secured.
Et voilà!
My wall is covered!
It looks good! It might hang a bit straighter if you sewed sleeves along the top and bottom and put wooden dowels in them…then the weight would be pulling evenly
Loving your blog lately.