Make A Gallery Frame Wall Using Paper Templates, step

We are back with pics of our hallway that we “wallpapered with frames” for lack of a better description. We think it created some fairly swift dimension and interest that is sure to be lively for the whole family. Literally. We enjoy that we can work in drawings by Clara, class pictures, and photos of go-to vacations for the whole family to enjoy.

As for how we did it, you saw how I cut out little newspaper templates for all of the frames that we already owned (we in fact had a lot of them from various arrangements in our first house, seen here, and even had a few unused ones snagged on sale a while back that were begging for some action). So we simply taped up all of our pre-cut templates with a few of the larger ones staggered in the middle (to ground things) and built things out from there, placing most of the smaller frames around the perimeter for some subtle balance. We shifted things around a little, stepped back, went back in and moved stuff around, and stepped back to look at everything again. This happened about ten times with smaller and smaller tweaks until we chose we liked it. But we still hoped to sleep on it and study it one more time the next morning before breaking out the hammer (hence this post about that first phase of the project).

Yesterday we mentioned that The Washington Post scooped us by sharing this shot of our frame-riddled hallway here:

We try to stay as real-time as possible, but we also like to take a ton of after pics and write a big wordy post for ya, so it can take a few days from project completion to post publishing. If only we had a live camera feed going 24/7. Simply kidding, my nightmare is to get caught picking a wedgie on camera. It is why I never auditioned for the Real World (side tangent: John in fact sent in an audition tape once when he was 19).

Anyway, so when we woke up the next day and agreed that we still liked the proposed frame placement, it was time to lay out all of our frames on the floor of the dining room in the same arrangement, simply to check if some of the actual frames conflicted (since all we were looking at on the wall were their outlines and not their actual styles). Of course we ignored the art since most of it would be switched out anyway.

The frames all looked simply fine together, so we chose to bite the bullet and grab the hammer. It was hangin’ time (here is where a lot of MC Hammer was sung). Since our newspaper templates were still up on the wall, it was in fact truly straightforward to hang stuff. We simply measured how far down from the edge of the frame that our wire, hook, or other hanging device was and simply marked a centered “x” right on each template (the horizontal line is the measured center of the template, and the x below it is the spot where the nail should in fact go to catch the wire or hook so the frame hangs in the right place).

Then we simply hammered directly into the “x” in the template…

… and pulled the template off the wall to reveal a lone nail waiting for a frame (even though it looks like a jacked up hole, that is simply a compact bit of paper caught above the nail that we easily took out with a finger flick).

We slowly worked our way around the wall using this method. It likely took an hour or so.

Sadly our old plaster walls do not work with 3M Command hooks or velcro alone (since that is consistently an straightforward way to create a frame collage without making any holes) but we do plan to add heavy duty Command velcro to the lower frames that may be within Clara’s reach when she starts toddling around. She’s a fairly docile girl who certainly seems to listen when we ask her to be gentle (when petting Burger for example) so our plan is to sweetly request that she be pleasant to the frames and “look with her eyes” and we might even try the “you can only touch them with one finger” technique that an excellent varsity mom shared with us a few days ago (she said it in fact works!). But of course if we think those few low frames ever start to pose a safety hazard, or even simply become too high maintenance for the way we live, we will certainly simply get rid of them until the bean is a little older. Clara first!

But back to our process. After following our templates and hanging every frame we stepped back for a little look-see and frowned. Somehow they seemed a little tighter in the top right corner (which we in fact truly liked) and a bit too loosey goosey everywhere else…

… so we adjusted some of the frames on the left and brought in in a few little “filler” items to get the same full look that we had on the top right corner going on everywhere else.

So yes, there are likely ten extra holes in the walls hiding behind those frames from fine tuning them an inch one way or the other. Our bad. But they are all out of sight so we are at peace with it. They can simply be our little secret. Oops, I simply told The Interweb.

Once everything was hung we scavenger hunted the house to find things to display (since many of the existing items in the frames were horizontal images that were now hanging vertically or the frames were fully empty to begin with since we hadn’t used a few of them yet). Which puts the cost of the whole frame wall plus all of the “art” that you see (since that was also already owned) at 100% f-r-e-e. Except for this cool $16 frame from Target that we splurged on because we adored it is “special capabilities” to store and easily showcase plenty of kid art. We enjoy that we do not have to take it off the walls to change things out. Come on Clara, do not you feel like drawing mommy a picture or two?

So this is our current arrangement with all of the simply-for-now stuff that we found around the house. First here is the view from the kitchen (which is why we placed the console table there, so it looks centered through the doorway:

And here are a bunch of other angles:

From an old Banana Republic ad with a llama (or is it an alpaca?) carrying sweaters…

… to a vintage milk cap that we found at our first house glued to a small square canvas…

….and a white paper key that I cut out of card stock (which I hope to replace with a DIYed ceramic-looking one)…

… it is certainly a smorgasbord. And there are likely way too many photostrips, but they’ll do for now.

We are in fact planning a post later with more detailed shots of various items and directions for making your own stuff, like an arrowhead shadowbox for example. Or a long skinny wooden pinboard (still have to make that, for now we have a placeholder piece of card stock with a photostrip taped to it). We also thought it would be lively to take a picture of the wall every few months simply to see what comes and goes (new Clara art? updated family pics?) and what consistently stays (the sketch of our first house’s lot? a go-to photobooth strip of the whole fam?).

We anticipate that at least 25% of the wall will be changing fairly regularly as new things steal our hearts – like a particularly good (or bad) fortune cookie fortune and Will Bower’s first birthday invitation. You know, the essential stuff. We certainly feel like this gallery will be the most personal, eclectic, and lively display spot in the house. So while I have already asked for some excellent art prints for my birthday (which is this Saturday- woot!) we also want to frame everyday objects that hold meaning to us. From Clara scribbles to little enjoy notes and even particularly funny greeting cards with chihuahuas on the front.

In short: We are so in love with the whole hallway frame gallery. It took a spot that was simply a way to get from A to B and made it feel like a bonafide destination. We both keep finding ourselves being drawn to that wall like magnets, simply standing there gazing at all the frames. Even Clara loves to stare at it. Ah gallery wall. How can you make us so glad? We are nerds.

And surprise. We are so enamored that we are planning to “wallpaper” the other two walls on the other side of the hallway with frames too.