This is a wall in my office. It makes me tremendously happy whenever I look at it. Fewer things I’ve created in my life give me the amount of satisfaction that an eight-foot plank of wood with some boat snaps in it does currently. Mostly because it was an idea that came to me that executed nearly as accurately to its concept as I had imagined it, and there’s seldom better feelings than when a plan goes according to plan.
While I was living in an apartment during the transitional phase between homes, my treasured wrestling belts had all sat in storage. I always knew and treated the apartment like the transitional domicile, and put little effort into doing much decoration or adorning it with much of my own personal effects. The belts remained in storage because I didn’t feel like unpacking them, I didn’t want to bother re-packing them, and frankly they’ve always been something of a challenge to display without consuming too much space.
When I moved into my new house where the whole world of home living was full of possibilities, I actually didn’t have much clue on what I was going to do with my belts. I knew that I had dedicated one bedroom to become my personal office space, and that’s where I wanted to have my belts, but the question was always how I was going to display them.
My old corner shelf was no longer an option, because it only had five shelves and I now had ten belts, and being the stickler for symmetry, refused to have half my belts displayed in one fashion, and the other five displayed alternatively.
I didn’t want to go the route of a glass display cases, because wrestling belts are no small things, and with ten of them, I would require a lot of glass display, which would also have been very costly, and frankly space consuming. I know a new, larger house has lots of extra space to accommodate things, but I’m also kind of minimalist and don’t like too many bulky things to make me feel claustrophobic.
I liked the idea of hanging my belts off the wall, because being on the wall would mean they wouldn’t be on the floor, and not being on the floor would mean they weren’t necessarily cluttering up my place. But I was really very much against the idea of affixing them to the wall like the Miz does, because he’s actually drilling screws through the physical belts themselves; I know he’s a professional wrestler who probably gets his replicas for cheap if not free, but I don’t, and I care for my belts a little bit more to where I don’t want to physically add any holes that I don’t feel needed to be added.
My thought was, why not use hardware that already existed? As in the snaps on the belt themselves? But wouldn’t affixing snaps be perilous and risk coming undone, especially under the weight of belts, which can weigh anywhere from 8-13 lbs. each?
But then a cursory search revealed the existence of screwable marine snaps, which would be the perfect things to bore into a plank of wood, to which I could then paint to match my wall and hang up to hold my belt collection. And then the idea was underway.
Fortunately, the amount of space ten wrestling belts occupied was perfectly accommodating to a standard 96” plank. I laid all my belts down, snap side down, to simulate how, and what order I wanted the belts to all hang, and to ensure that there was enough space for all ten of them. They all fit, which is great news, but at the same time, there’s a foreboding understanding that there is zero room for expansion, and I’ve already stated that I would like to have an IWGP championship belt from New Japan Pro Wrestling and if the opportunity ever presented itself, I would still get one. But I‘ll cross that bridge when I get there.
And these are the snaps that I purchased off Amazon. I guess they’re typically meant for like boat tarps or any other heavy duty uses that mandate snaps being screwed into things for optimal leverage and means to stick into things. But at $6 for a sack of 25, it’s more than I needed, and at less than $2 for the plank of wood, along with some drywall anchors and screws, this proved to be a pretty economical home project that brings me lots of joy.
I pressed down and applied pressure onto the back snaps to leave small indentations in the wood, to notate where I needed to install each individual screw snap. The plank I got was standard, not pressure treated wood, so not only was it soft enough for the indentations to show adequately enough, it was soft enough to where I didn’t have to pre-drill any holes, and with just pressure alone, could screw the snaps into wood directly.
With the rail itself done, it was now preparation for the wall itself. After lining up where I wanted to install the rail, I preemptively installed some drywall anchors to where I planned to affix screws; as stated, championship belts are not light, and ten of them is a lot of collective weight. I used two sets of four drywall anchors, which is advertised to support up to 150 lbs.
And this is the rail alone, installed. It felt sturdy, and legitimately capable of holding 150 lbs, and there was no give or looseness anywhere. And with eight anchored screws placed in strategic locations to prevent bowing, sagging or any chance of it coming off the wall in the middle, I figured it was ready to go.
And the belts begin going up. I felt like I was in a real ladder match, each time I went up with each of my belts, and pondered on what I thought were some of the better ladder matches in history. Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon I is definitely up there, as would be any one of the several tables, ladders and chairs matches between Edge & Christian, the Dudleys and the Hardy Boyz, but honestly a lot of other ones were kind of weak in comparison.
When I was finished putting up the last belt, I felt giddy with joy at just how well it turned out. It actually looked exactly how I had hoped it would look, and a bonus that I had a hard time anticipating was that it fit perfectly in between the side wall and the frame of the door, and didn’t entirely cover up the light switch which was one of the concerns I had.
So, in the end, I have a neat looking means of displaying all of my belts without having to physically alter any of the belts themselves. And I’ve accomplished decorating an entire wall in a manner aesthetically pleasing to me, at the same time completely eliminating any necessity of them occupying any floor space, which means that the configuring of my floor is still entirely open.
Each one of those victories is practically worthy of belts themselves, and I’m sure when my house is pretty fully set up, I think ten belts might just be adequate enough to warrant each individual accomplishment. Then I can’t say I didn’t earn them.
