another brick in the wall...
....WOULD be the cool title i would give this if my wall was exposed brick - like it is in my dream. but alas it is not, so i did my best to make it fantastic on its own.
this was the starting point:
"ewww what a boring white wall" is probably what most people would think, while they would say "ohhh thats so nice, it looks clean". the underlying point being that sometimes: too clean = boring.
so i decided that i wanted to do something cool and inexpensive for the artwork in my room, and since i have a crafty side i decided on a DIY frames installation but let me tell you it got a little more aggressive then i had first anticipated. at first i had chosen to go with a variety of pearl finish bright colours - thinking it would be the only real focal part of the room. but when all the colour was finally done i looked at my frames and thought.. "dear lord i am going to give myself a headache every time i look at my bed!" so that idea was canned.
i decided from that moment to go with my favourite colour (that isn't a colour because its a shade) and use grey with fabric and mirror set behind as my accents.
so i repainted the frames - first white:
then spray painted them all grey:
and i may have missed a few times and got myself. might i add rubber gloves would be useful if they came up to your elbow sometimes (just a thought..):
but good news is they all worked and thankfully the weather acted in my favour and held off raining until they were all dry. thanks mother nature you're a peach ;)
so next up was my choice of fabric. at first i was thinking of going with a pale yellow with white polka dots - but upon seeing all the birch furniture in the room i realised i needed something a bit stronger. luckily i was at IKEA helping nb pick out all the furniture for her room (thats another post) when i stumbled upon this beauty of a floral pattern. the moment i saw it i knew it was going to be perfect:
good news is is didn't look too girly or old lady-like, since there was a lot of grey in the space already. so now it was time to prep all my frames for the fabric.
to make my life easier i did this with the assistance of cardboard. i took measurements of all the frames and cut out inserts from cardboard that would fit snugly to replace the glass. (by the way, earlier i had discarded the glass from every frame). i then took my sheet of fabric and cut it to fit over each cardboard insert:
to affix the fabric to the cardboard i used a hot-glue gun, as well a a staple gun for the larger sheets. this has held perfectly so far and they have been together now for 2 months.
it total i made just over 20 frames for the space above my headboard - and to help me think about how to place them on the wall i measured out a similar space in my room and laid out the frames. thankfully my bed was just about the right size:
obviously since i am 5'3 and fairly useless at reaching high things, i asked for assistance from js and nb to hang my pretty project. since the wall is external facing it is concrete so there was no way i was going to be hanging these like normal pictures. ive had this problem before and i know from experience the best solution is industrial strength double-sided tape (check any hardware store)! so my lovely roommates and i formed an assembly line of cutting strips of tape, lining the backs of the frames and ripping off the backing, and then handing it to me (while i was teetering on my headboard), and they collectively made sure i didn't fall while i placed the frames. that last one may have been the hardest out of the whole project.
but i think the results turned out fantastic - and to make sure it wasn't too much fabric i added some frames with mirrors instead:
and a close up too of one of my favourite frames - i think the amount of the pattern you see fits the size just right:
also since i had some extra fabric i took the time to create a coaster for my desk that matched my pretty frames. i used the same cardboard wrapped in fabric based as my frames, but instead of a glue-gun i used double-sided fabric tape. mainly so it would be even for me to place drinks on. when it was done i used scrapbooking picture corner holders to pretty-up the edges. it turned out cute too and is a great tie in for the space using the leftover fabric:
all in all this project cost me around $60-70 (keeping in mind i restarted once) so i couldn't be happier with the result. now i have something that is 100% original and perfectly me in my space.
