My perfect picture wall

When we move into our house, we couldn’t put anything up on the walls. We had plenty of pictures, I just couldn’t decide how I wanted everything to go up. We lived in our house without anything on the walls for quite a while until I begged my family for some help. This is the wall we started with

I gave my family some options to choose from an I did the popular vote. I rearrange a ton of different possibilities that seemed okay, these are just a few

This ended up the winner.

But I still wasn’t happy with it. I’m not a huge fan of organized and boring, so I changed it up a bit lot. My new layout might seem very chaotic and unorganized to some, but for me, it’s perfect an I absolutely love it.

My first change was the color of the frames – from black to white. My original plan was to use white frames with different color mattes, but in the end I just went with all white – white frames, white mattes. We added the mirror to the wall – got it at a garage sale (without the frame) for $1!! Grant made the frame and I painted it white to match.

We started our layout with the console table (made by Grant), centered the mirror above it, then added the pictures randomly around it. This is much more my style – random and sporadic! There are no tips or tricks to this layout. The only thing I can say about it is I didn’t want the pictures to line up or seem organized much at all. There are a few that are lined up and even with each other, but for the most part, they are all randomly set.

We added a lot more pictures than what we had up previously, and I love the addition of the shelf (made by Grant) under the thermostat. It’s a lot easier to cover it up or make it blend it when I put décor on the shelf.

This wall is part of a vaulted ceiling, so it goes up a lot higher than this and I’m tempted to keep going up with the pictures, but Grant thinks this is plenty. He might be right, but I may try to add one or two more! That picture in the middle of the console table was actually suppose to be on the wall, Grant won that battle.

And, because I love before-and-after’s, here you go

Oversize Picture and Frame

If you have ever wanted a large picture to go on your wall and looked at buying one, you know how much they can cost.  We wanted something big to go above our dining room table, but wanted something that was meaningful for us personally.  We began by taking a picture of some scenery around where we lived.  This is actually the part that took the longest, because we kept taking more pictures and couldn’t seem to decide on one.  We finally found one that we liked and had it printed on a regular plotter, like the ones used to print engineering prints.  The quality isn’t as good as a photo would have been, but this is a big picture and is meant to be viewed at a distance.

Then I made a frame to match the size of the picture (doesn’t have to be exact, just make sure it isn’t bigger than the picture).  I just used some pine and mitered the corners to 45 degrees, glued it together and added some finish nails to hold it together.  The other thing I did was used my router with a keyhole router bit to make the slots in the back to hang it.  Stain or paint the frame, we used a spray paint, but only did two light coats so you can still see the wood grain through the paint. The great thing is you don’t have to worry about cutting a slot in the back for the glass, picture, and the backing board to fit into…… I’ll explain in a minute.

Install two screws or nails in the wall to match the keyhole you made in the back of the frame (if you make them 16 or 32 inches you should be able to hit studs for both screws, plan ahead).

Then we cut the extra edges off of the picture so that it wouldn’t show on the outside of the frame and left enough room for the tape.

Then we taped the picture on the back of the frame.  Make sure to pull it tight because you don’t have glass in the front or a backer behind it to hold it flat.  Also, make a note of where your keyholes are because they may be covered by the paper.

Hang it up by slipping the keyholes over your screws that are in the wall.  You can use just one hole and screw to make it easier, but it is crucial to get it in the middle and you will probably keep busy making sure it is always level.  I recommend two screws/holes.

This is the best picture we have of it hanging up. You can’t tell from this picture, or any of these pictures, but we have large vaulted ceilings which makes for large empty walls. This is our first effort in filling part of it, with an enlargement of one of our own pictures.