Time lapse gallery wall

Before:

After:

Yay! This was such a long time coming, I know. I wanted to make sure I had a good balance of sizes, colors, shapes, and styles, yadda yadda... and achieving a balance can be time-consuming, apparently.

I love it.

The fact that I spent maybe $75 for the whole shebang, and that I only bought a total of five frames/shadowboxes/canvases new for the project-- the rest were thrifted or antiqued or repurposed-- makes me extremely happy. I think that's part of why it took so long-- I didn't just run out to the store and buy a ton of finished frames. First there was the procurement, then the painting, then often the purchasing of glass, then the filling... you see?

It's such a funky, vintage-y mix of things. It's so us. I've always loved frame walls, but they've been other peoples' frame walls, you know? Not mine. This one has liberty pennies and an old key and a shadowbox of antique glass bottles, and lots of old photographs. My goodness, it's perfect.

Hanging was a total cinch. I traced all the frames and cut the shapes out from old saved wrapping paper, and taped 'em all up, one at a time, starting with a larger frame midway down the wall and slowly building up and down and out around. I thought I might struggle with matching the incline of the stairs with the incline of the frames inching up the wall, but it came very naturally. The only thing I measured was the location of each frame's hanger in back, so I knew where to sink the anchor into the wall.

 I imagine I'll fill it out some more in the coming years... and there's plenty more wall to fill in our hallway, still, too... but it already adds tons of interest to that extremely large, formerly-blank expanse of wall.

Stay tuned later this week for another thrilling edition of... Time Lapse Home Improvement...

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