The Frame-Up Job

We expect Baby Plemmons to arrive sometime within the next seven or eight days and, believe it or not, we're still not finished decorating her room. Fortunately, it's just a matter of moving and selling some books on the upper bookshelves (which can wait another year or more if need be), affixing a small wall banner, and hanging one big poster frame (that I've been waiting to buy at one of Hobby Lobby's recurring 50% off sales).

 

A side note on buying frames: Since I personally dislike Hobby Lobby's position on health care for their female employees, I only shop there as little as possible, when I need a big poster-sized frame. For frames smaller than that, I can often find several good ones at the local Salvation Army - for a fraction of the retail price. If you're in the market for frames, I'd definitely recommend you check out your local thrift stores. You'll probably end up with a few photos of someone else's family, or some ugly art you don't want, but just take those out of the frames and toss them in the recycling bin, and you're ready to go.

  

When pondering what to do with the blank wall space above the dresser, I decided that I'd try making a display composed of several small picture frames. I'd never done that before, so I wasn't sure how it would look, but I browsed some room designs on the Houzz website (using their app on my wonderful Google Nexus 7 tablet) and got some ideas.

 

Next, I paged through a stack of miscellaneous art books and magazines that I didn't mind slicing up (like the Directory of Illustration, and Illustration magazine) and cut out a small stack of various pictures that I thought were visually interesting and might appeal to a young, 'hip' girl (which of course she will be, right?). Liz then went through the stack and picked out her favorites, and we had our art!

 

My visit to the Salvation Army store yielded not only 11 frames of various sizes and shapes, but also a plaster sun and a flat wooden lizard carving (both of which hang elsewhere in this room) for just over $20. Unfortunately, I didn't take the pictures with me to the store, so some of the art we'd chosen was either too large or too small for three of the frames. (We'll find some use for them eventually, though.)

 

After I got home, I cleaned the frames, then cut and framed a few of the pictures. Carrying them upstairs, I arranged them on the rug in what I thought was a good pattern. (You can see that with one frame I bought, I also got a photo of a stranger's child, so that picture got tossed in the bin.) Next, I took a snapshot with my phone so I'd have a plan to go by when it was time to start hanging the frames:

 

 

Of course, since I've spent so much time plastering and painting these rooms (as you can see in my earlier posts), I didn't want to add a lot of little nail holes to the wall. Instead, I used 3M's Command frame hanging strips that allow me to remove the frames whenever I want to, without permanently damaging the wall:

 

 

 

 

 

As I added more frames to the wall, I made some minor changes to the layout, but nothing significant. Having that layout snapshot on my phone was a huge help! With each frame finally in place, we now have a nice little wall display!

 

 

 

Well, okay, it's not actually complete - the top frame is just placeholder art until we can find something that fits that oval shape. (Fans of Torchwood may recognize actress Indira Varma, as Suzie Costello, in the frame now.) Also, between the black and gold frames on the left side, there's an antique-y gold letter (the first letter of the baby's name), but I've cut that out of this photo so as not to give you any clues to what her name will be. Sorry about that! :)

 

I'll show more baby room photos soon, but while I'm talking about hanging frames, I wanted to mention another good alternative to nails. If your house is like ours, with lath-and-plaster walls and lots of hidden stone and metal ductwork behind, you might find that some nails don't want to penetrate deeply enough, while you can hear others knocking out plaster or loosening laths in the space behind. In that case, I recommend using Cobra's WallBiters. They go in deep enough to securely hang my heavier frames, but don't need to penetrate as deeply as most nails would:

 

 

Finally, let me close by saying that none of the products I mention in this post were gifted to me by the manufacturer or any representative - or anyone, really. C'mon, guys, where's my swag?