Border painting time for the living room. So first step is measuring, then snapping out the lines, then taping up.

We decided we wanted to paint an ellipse around the center ceiling fixture as well… But how do you paint an ellipse? First you have to draw it, and Rob found a great tutorial online for a ‘Gardener’s ellipse’. To quickly recap, first decide on the Length and Width, and mark them out. Then take half the length, and draw two points on the length line at that distance from the top of the ellipse.

If that still makes sense, tie a string that is the full length of the ellipse to two push pins and stick those in at the marks you just made. Then take a pencil and push it against the droopy string at any location until taut. Then draw

Slide the pencil the length of the string, drawing the whole time:

Done! This fancy trick is actually much easier done than said unlike many of our projects.

Now onto the next trick: painting the ellipse!

Check out the better-explained, full ellipse-drawing instructions here: http://www.mathopenref.com/constellipse1.html