Art for the unfancy
After nearly two years in our house, we finally have some art on the walls! I've been collecting random pieces here and there for months now, but I just couldn't decide how to display everything. If you've been on Pinterest recently, I'm sure you've seen the millions of gallery wall options available. I wasn't quite sure it was the look I wanted as I was afraid it could turn too country/rustic for my taste, but I knew I needed something fairly casual to compensate for my rather "eclectic" taste in art.
Speaking of art, I suppose I use the term rather loosely. Most of the art I've collected over time is simply personal photos or memorabilia. I only have a few pieces that were created by an "artist". I suppose it depends on your taste, but I like to fill my home with items that remind me of special moments instead of something that might be found in a gallery.
Tyler and I started out by laying all of our options on the floor and deciding which pieces were a "must". Lucky for us, the archway between our living and dining room is the exact width of our console table, so we were able to rearrange our options several times before settling on a final layout. The gallery wall layout ended up working best for us because we had a random collection of frames. If I had random photos all in identical frames, I likely would have gone for a symmetrical alignment instead.
Tyler's must-have piece was the first piece of art we ever purchased for the house - the "Crossroads of America" heart we found at the Inventorialist. My must have? The "Keep it Weird Portland" print I found online - LOVE IT. Makes me laugh every time. :) The next step? Figure out how to move our floor layout to the wall. We decided to use paper to approximate the size of each frame and then tape the paper on the wall. It looked something like this:
The paper worked out extremely well. Unfortunatley, Tyler doesn't seem to know his own strength and broke the glass of his "must-have" piece before getting it hung.... Whoops!
No big deal. We moved forward without the glass and plan to buy a replacement soon. As for actually hanging the art, we ended up using Command Damage-Free Hanging Strips. Tyler hates putting holes in our old plaster walls, so this was a great alternative. The strips stick together like velcro, so you can easily remove a frame at anytime.
I'm really happy with the result! Our house is feeling more like a home every day. Oh, by the way, my handy-man husband actually built the console table. Impressive, right? It's so nice to be able to showcase his hard work. Now if I can just convince him to finish our fireplace surround....
