Hang in there

Made some progress in our dining nook by way of filling up the empty wall in there. I would have loved a series of these beveled mirrors and would have gladly found some knockoffs, but they were vetoed by the freaking Husband. It's difficult to design around Mr. FC.

So a gallery of framed photos it is. Do you mind if I share my tried and true frame hanging method with you? I'm sure I'm not the first to use this method but it works for me everytime.

You'll need these (oh, and scissors):

1. Using construction paper (or whatever paper condusive to the size of your frames), trace the frame. Trim off edges.

2. Turn frame over and line paper template up with the frame. Using a nail, puncture the paper at the exact location of the hanging hook. Every frame's hook (even if they're identical in style) has a slightly different location, so make sure to number each of your templates according to the frame you used. Otherwise, you might see some small undesirable variations in the lineup once the frames are hanging on your wall.

3. Tape your paper templates up on your wall. Arrange and rearrange as needed. Once you've figured out a pleasing layout, USE A LEVEL to ensure a straight, level line! Unless you're going for a more eclectic layout; if so skip this step.

Realize that you're drinking your usual glass(es) of wine. Decide to check the levelness of the frames again.


4. Pound the nails through the nail hole you previously made on each template.

5. Hang your frames OVER the paper templates. Don't remove these quite yet, just in case you need to make any slight adjustments.

6. Once you're happy with the look, remove the paper templates. Step back, admire, and enjoy (until you decide you'd like to hang something entirely new on your wall).

I'll probably eventually add another row of frames to this wall, but a) I'm a minimalist and b) I'm too lazy as there are bigger fish to fry in this fixer upper house of ours. The original plan was to hang these sconces but they looked a bit "off" on this wall (and since our living room looks into our dining nook, it seemed to compete too much with this sunburst piece). So I went with simple ones and called it a day.

I don't think I'll be winning any design awards with this space, but it's liveable. More progress to come on this room.....