Not so long ago, I spoke with you about “art walls.” We started with WHAT to Hang, then moved on to how to FRAME it, and then how to HANG it.
Seems I got one of my clients all riled up.
There’s a gigantic blank wall in her cheerful gray dining room…
…(remember this room? It’s painted Benjamin Moore’s AC-28 Smoke Embers, with a Thomas Paul Roman Shade)…
…well, that big blank wall was starting to get on her nerves.
So she went on kind of an art bender. She gathered up every framed picture in her entire house AS WELL AS stacks of pretty cards a dear friend sent her over the years.
And then she called me to come make sense of it.
It was a little overwhelming at first. But pretty quickly we decided to group the larger, already framed pictures in other parts of the house, and feature these postcards – which were not only pretty, but meaningful to my client – in the dining room.
The postcards weren’t all the same shape or exactly the same size, but we determined that most of them would fit into an 8 x 8″ frame.
So we chose 16 cards with the idea that we would hang them in a grid: 4 up, 4 across.
Choosing was no small task. But we based the decisions on how well the cards worked together as well as how much we liked each one individually.
Then we ordered 16 square frames from a random online source. (Worked out fine.)
THEN – and this was the most expensive part of the project – we had an off-white mat cut for each postcard. I think it cost about $11 per mat. It was CRITICAL, though: the mats and the frames are the unifying element. Et voila:
There’s 1-1/4″ between each frame, in case you’re wondering.
We hung these while the client was at work, and later that evening I got a voicemail that said, “ANNIE! I just got home and I LOVE LOVE LOOOVVVEE lovelovelovelovelovelove the art wall!”
So I think she likes it :)
Annie Elliott – aka bossy color – is an interior decorator and design blogger in Washington, D.C. She’s also the creator of the “bossy basic,” a one-time service that jump-starts the interior design process in your home.