The adventure of trying to make a house a home that we built for our family of six plus some craft, home décor, recipes & any family fun we might have.

Thursday 5 September 2013

Framing the Entry Part 2


So last week I showed you some of the inspiration I'd collected on my Pinterest board as to how I'd like to decorate our entry. As you could see I wanted to create a colourful, empty gallery wall using six coloured frames to complement the silver/chrome light fixture and black hall table that will feature in the room. So I started collecting paint chips from my local hardware store so that I could figure out which colours complemented a beautiful orange paint that I'd found. I settled on purple, pink, yellow, silver and teal to go with my lovely bold orange. However, when Mr Opoes visited the hardware store to purchase 5 sample pots I needed Mackenna and Viveca picked up a few paint chips of their own and one of them caught my eye, so I swapped out the teal and replaced it with my new favourite colour.
 
1. Ballistic (Wattyl) 2.Perfect Purple (Wattyl)
3. Pale Daffodil (Dulux) 4.Perfectly Pink (Wattyl)
5.PlastiKote Metallic Pewter 4403  6. Silk Sari (Wattyl)
Now the next step I took was a little different from all the tutorials I'd read so without giving you a long winded description of what I did I thought I'd just show you in pictures. I've also attached a simple explanation so that you can understand what I'm trying to show you. Some pictures won't be that great because one of the kids took the photograph for me as I was busy and couldn't do two things at once.

Depending on the number of frames you're hanging I'd plan the layout before attaching
to the wall. I taped off the space I wanted to work within on the floor.
Next I lay butchers paper down on the tiled floor within the taped off area as this was the space I'd be working with once it was on the wall. Having the paper down gave me the opportunity to visualise how it would look up on the wall plus I also make any changes I might need. With a black felt pen I traced around the frame and then I removed each of the backing pieces from the frames.
 
1. Trace around the frame with black pen. 2. Remove the glass, paper and chipboard.3. Using pliers remove
the little metal pins that hold the picture in. Place back on the butchers paper.
In total I had thirty one photo frames and six paint colours which I had to group together without it looking too planned or busy. While talking to my sister she suggested that I gather up a heap of paint sample and throw them up into the air. I loved this idea and so I decided that wherever the paint chip landed would determine the frames colour. However, if more than one colour sample landed on the same frame I'd previously decided that the sample facing up would be the colour chosen. I also wrote each colour under each drawn frame.
1. Mr Opoes throwing paint chips in the air. 2. Paint chips on each frame.
1. I cut each paper frame out 2. Paper template taped to the wall.


Finally it was time to place all the frames up on the wall. I purchases a heap of 3M Picture Hanging Strips (Velcro type) in different width and sizes so that I could place each frame up on the wall. Mr Opoes helped me when it came to placement as I needed to know whether or not the frames were straight. Once everything was straight and in the correct position I then pressed each frame down for a minute. As I didn't follow the directions correctly I used strips that would hold more than the actual weight of the frame.
 
Now if you're still reading congratulates. I will share the pictures of our finished wall tomorrow as I am experiencing problems with my camera so I'm going to have to use my phone tomorrow to take more pictures. Tomorrow I'll also talk about what other things I need to complete in order to call this project FINISHED.

Have you ever started a project only to discover that it's taken longer to finish than what you anticipated? This project has taken me so long I gave it two weeks and I've already gone past that by an additional four weeks and counting.
 
Megan

12 comments:

  1. I cant wait to see the finished wall Megan! I have 2 gallery walls - my colours are turquoise (no surprise there) white, grey and yellow. I'm reworking one of them but it will be a slow process. I love 3m strips - only way to hang pictures for me.
    I did giggle at the paint chip toss xx Nat

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    1. The colours for your gallery wall sound divine. I did love using the 3M strips but I was starting to get a complex especially when the ladies at the hardware store would greet me with 'so you're back again, let me guess strips???'. I can't wait to show you the wall tomorrow it's going to look so good once everything is completed ;)
      I'm glad I gave you a giggle, my husband actually enjoyed doing that job and I think he did it incorrectly a few times just so he could do it a few extra times.
      Thanks for stopping by I hope to see you tomorrow. xxx Megan

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  2. Pinned! Our walls are so boring and need this help!

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    1. I know your pain Diana regarding boring walls. We built our house about 14 months ago and up until this project every wall in our house is BORING. I've got plans for another gallery wall however I just need to find the time to get it organised :) Thank you for stopping by.

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  3. Wow! It looks great already. I need to do this in my dining room. Pinned! If you have time, I'd love it if you would link this to Family Fun Friday - we have over 100 bloggers and 600 readers every week. :-) Thanks so much! Monica
    http://happyandblessedhome.com/category/family-fun/

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    1. Thank you Monica for the invitation to your link party. I will pop over and link up my little gallery wall project. I love the way this turned out and it's given the area some much needed colour. Have a great weekend. Megan

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  4. This is a great idea! If you like to link up come over to Craft Frenzy Friday at www.craftdictator.com! It goes live Thursdays at 7:00 PM Central! I hope to see you there!

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    1. Thank you for visiting my little blog Cara and I'm glad that you like my gallery wall project. I will be over shortly to link up this project and have a look around, maybe I'll find a few more ideas for our house :)

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  5. This is great! I love your paint choosing method! It seems that every project I do seems to drag on and on so you are not alone! Cheers.

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    1. Thanks for visiting. I'm so going to use this paint choosing method again as it was random and it doesn't looked planned. I'm glad that there is someone out in the world of blogging that understands what I'm taking about. We could be each others support person lol. Cheers

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  6. Oh your sister is brilliant I love it and the butcher paper idea is fab!

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    1. I know what you mean about the butchers paper it was a godsend as it allowed me to place them correctly. I'm sure the paper will work well when I get around to my 4 metre long gallery wall.

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