Adding all the fixin’s

Remember on Monday when the pesky blank wall in the studio went from looking like this:

…To this?:

Basically the idea was to paint frames directly onto the dry wall – I wanted the lines to be uneven and sketchy, sort of like a designer’s rendering. The next step (obviously…) was to fill the spaces inside my faux frames. For art, I went with things that inspired me – anything from patterned paper to a newspaper article printed about me last year – that way the space could become an interchangeable mood board. I even went so far as to rip two pages out of my very favorite design book “Flea Market Style” by Emily Chalmers (this was before I realized I could have just photo copied the pages on my printer…ugh):

The ragged edges were easily eradicated with a straight edge, pen and pair of scissors…

Here are some of the pieces of patterned paper I decided to hang:

All I used to hang the scraps (which is essentially what the “art” ended up being) on the wall was plain scotch tape. The purpose of this wall art is that it can be changed around as my interests and inspirations evolve – The easily removable tape was the perfect solution.

At last, we had a result to look at! I even made myself a little cozy corner to add to the whole effect 🙂 If you keep up with our blog, you know that usually the ugly bulk of an elliptical machine lives in this corner – Not this soft, warm, inviting little arrangement of a chair, magazine rack, ottoman and lamp…A girl can dream ::sigh::

But ANYWAY – Back to the new art collection…The sketchy quality of the lines is definitely still evident with the art added, but I think filling the “frames” did the trick in turning the painted edges from looking like a kindergarten’s school project into something intentional and interesting.

Here are a couple of details, although my feeling is that the singular pieces look a little archaic by themselves. The gallery wall is MUCH more successful as a “big picture”. But for curiosity’s sake…

SIDENOTE: You knew I had to put an owl in there SOMEWHERE…And yes, I put a real frame inside of a fake frame – Sort of a play on the fact that this whole project is essentially make-believe with that third dimension.


This angle definitely makes me want to cuddle up with a fleece blanket and a book, while intermittently gazing up at my new faux gallery 😉

I hesitate to even show you what it looks like on a regular basis when the reading nook is dismantled and the elliptical (and litter box) is back in place…But this blog is all about reality so here it goes:

Ick.

Oh well – At least it’s better now with SOMETHING on the wall…Plus, maybe if I whine enough John will trade the bulk of the elliptical in for a foldable workout system that can gooooo awwwwaaayyyyyy when not in use. I would L-O-V-E to put a day bed in its place so that we had a place for guests to sleep over and a sofa/reading nook the rest of the time. Fingers crossed!!

For now, let’s go back to my day dream of what it could look like 24/7…

Would love to get your thoughts on this!

Have a great weekend 🙂

Sketching out an idea

I think it’s safe to say that we all have that little spot, corner or wall in our homes that is foiling us – One particular place that is blank, poorly lit or we just can’t decide what to put there. Well sometimes the best way to tackle these pesky zones is to just experiment.

The spot in our home that continuously gets the best of me is an empty wall up in the studio. There’s usually a bulky elliptical machine in front of it (John nicely moved it out of the way for me last night so I could have access to the wall, as you can see in the photo below), and no art. Blankedy blank blankkkk…

It was killing me.

Thankfully, I randomly got the inspiration I was searching for while flipping through a design magazine at Barnes & Noble. I think I must have been perusing the pages very quickly, because it ended up that I didn’t actually see what I thought I saw.

Allow me to explain…There was one particular page that I was about to flick aside when I happened to notice a photo on the bottom right hand corner. It was a gallery wall, but not just any gallery wall – The frames were painted directly onto the wall! Upon closer inspection, it was just a normal gallery wall (the frames must have just been very thin and crooked) but the seed was planted in my mind and I had a vision.

The idea was to create my own gallery wall on the blank space, but use white paint instead of nails and wood! I wanted it to be kind of uneven and wobbly-looking, almost like a designer’s rendering or sketch of a possible frame configuration.

My first step was to find an arrangement I liked – I don’t like to go into an art project without something to go from. So I Googled “gallery wall” and came away with TONS of options:

But in the end, I went with this one because I liked the stacked arrangement and the mixture of round, square and rectangular:

Next, I grabbed a pencil and level to sketch the frames onto my wall. I decided that I didn’t want the frames to be TOO askew because I would constantly feel the urge to straighten them (which would be impossible since they’d be painted on). So the level was used to keep my OCD from boiling over.

For the round, non-straight-edged frames, I used found objects throughout the house – Like a plate, an oval platter and the chalkboard platter message board I worked on a couple of weeks ago.

I tried to take some photos of the entire arrangement penciled out on the wall, but as you can probably imagine, the lines didn’t show up very well…This was the best I could do:

Time for the paint! I just squeezed out a bunch of white acrylic paint, added about a tablespoon of water to make it more workable/spreadable and got to work!

Here’s the first coat:

And the second:

I decided to make one of the frames a little thicker to balance the ornate/antique-looking one on the lower right.

Definitely very sketchy and unfinished-looking, but I think it will all come together once the art is added in.

Speaking of the art, you won’t get to see that until Friday, but I promise to show the final product then! I’m looking forward to seeing my vision come alive. This is definitely one of my more original (and odd) projects, and I’m very interested to hear what you guys have to say. Don’t judge it TOO much yet though, since it’s not finished 🙂

Cheers to crazy visions and make-believe inspiration!

Psst…You can check out the final look here!

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