I made a post not that long ago about gallery wall inspirations. After hording frames for months, I finally executed one! This one was inspired by Living with Lindsay. Isn't hers awesome! I tweaked mine to fit the needs of our space by making it horizontal, a little bit larger scale, and of course with my decor colors.
I did not follow her tutorial at all. It confused me! I think she is just way smarter than me and I was unable to grasp her genius! So here's the run down of how I executed her awesome project!
Choose your frames. I started with the largest one to anchor the rest. I must have rearranged these 10 times on the floor. See the lightest colored, square frame? I totally made that out of paint sticks! Awesomesauce, just sayin'!
Once you have the frames and layout you like, choose your colors. I have trouble envisioning things, so I photographed the frames then colored them over with paint shop. I know, super pro.
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| What? You mean everyone doesn't keep giant, wooden silverware under their guest room bed??? |
I painted the frames in my color choices, then glazed them. At this point I was super second guessing myself and thinking that I would hate it...
The rest of it I sort of winged. There was no measuring, or templates, or anything. There are, however, a thousand nail holes in my wall. :) That's okay, you can't see them. When it came to hanging, I started with all the frames that would be flat on the wall. That's the easy part, right? At this time, I still had no clue how I was actually going to get the other frames up. I was actually thinking that I would just nail straight through them into the bottom frame! lol Sorry I didn't take pictures along the way because I didn't think I'd actually be explaining my process. :( ...but it's pretty straightforward.
Instead of nailing the top frames straight into the bottom ones, I just treated the first layer of frames like the wall! I nailed straight into them and just hung the top frame on the nail. This way there are no nails showing. Any frame that you are nailing into needs to be anchored well. So instead of a single nail in the center, I did one on each side so the frame wouldn't shift with the extra weight.
Here's a little "diagram" since I failed at taking pictures of the actual process. I suck at taking pictures, anyway. Each arrow points to where I put a nail. This "diagram" applies to the top layer of frames only.
A. These nails I simply banged straight into the frame underneath and used them to hang the top frame on. Now because the top frames weren't centered onto the bottom frames, they required more than just this nail to keep them straight.
B. These nails were also put directly through the underlying frame. However, I either used the nail to perch the bottom portion of the frame on top of (sort of like a shelf) or I used the body of the frame to my advantage. You know those metal staples that hold the back of a frame in? My frames were covered with them! They served well to hang the sides of the picture frames on a nail! They were like built in hooks.
C. These nails went directly into the wall. For the blue frame (right) I simply used it as another hook to hang the frame on. The nail for the yellow frame on the left hand side wasn't used for mounting at all. That frame kept wanting to flop toward the wall on that side. So, I just hammered a nail into the wall and left it sticking out enough behind the frame to keep that side pushed out and straight.
Make sense?
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| The awesome view when you're sitting on the couch! |
I'm so happy with them that every time I walk by I just stand there with this stupid grin on my face! I even make special trips into the room, just to look at my masterpiece!
