hangin' around: the gallery wall is UP

Finally. The gallery wall is up! 

Over the last several weeks (or even months) I've collected miscellaneous items to include in the gallery wall for our re-done living room. Before the living room's transformation, the "gallery" was mostly full of pictures and random hanging items we had accumulated. However, I wanted it to be full of more "art" than photos this time around. 

To hang them all accurately, it took some measuring, pre-planning and a little toothpaste. Yes, toothpaste. I first measured the area. Apparently, you shouldn't hang items more than seven feet from the ground. Who knew? So, that's what I went with. It ended up being perfect height given the window's height. 

Once I measured the height and width (to go just beyond the buffet's width), I taped it off in the floor and started placing. After a few trial and error placements, I decided on my plan.

And then I went to work. The toothpaste came in when I needed to figure out just where to hammer the nails. I put just a dab of it on the back of each frame/item before pressing it onto the wall where it was meant to go. Nail, wipe then hang. It's easy and pretty error proof. 

So, with some old and new mixed together... here you have it (top to bottom rows). 

(1) A sign I bought at Dottie Couture Boutique, one of my favorite places to shop. Who doesn't love a good Beatles quote?

(2) This is an extra frame we had lying around that was waiting for it's place. A year or so ago we had a subscription to Papirmasse, which sends various artist's prints each month. This was one of my faves.

(3) This is the pillow to art DIY project I did a few weeks ago.

(4) Found on Pinterest, I made this framed map and key art awhile back. It was featured on our previous gallery wall, too.

(5) My mom sent me this little notecard earlier this year, which features a drawing of our cabin on the front. Since that's one of our happy places, I thought it was the perfect addition. 

(6) There are no words for this one. While it is a photo, it's also art. The Sample Gates at Indiana University are as beautiful as it gets!

(7) Each time we visit my Grandma's in Wisconsin, we always look through the things she has saved around the house. We found this print - of a church in Boston - and snagged it right away knowing it'd be perfect for the wall. 

(8) The cutting board to art DIY project here is the perfect item to mix up all the squares and rectangles up here. (Note: I'm still deciding how I want to hang this one so that it's less angled or completely straight!)

(9) My favorite quote - "The biggest victories in life are the small ones." - says it all on this piece. I made this canvas last year. It also had a home in our gallery before.

(9) This is a postcard I gave Sam earlier this year. It has a penguin on it, which is one of my favorite animals. And a cute little phrase at the bottom: "I will never waddle away from you."

(10) Thanks to my Grandma (again), we have this artwork to add in. It is a set up five, but we only hung up one. The others will eventually all be split between the kids. Vintage and very awesome.

Productivity feels so good. So do house to home projects. 

styling shelves

Oh, the sweet, sweet reward of nesting. 

It's been exciting through the whole process of re-doing the family room. From demolition to painting to hanging to styling... and there's still more to go! 

Here's a full shot of the new shelves and their decor all put into place: 

Before, the built-ins were cluttered with more frames, sports items, books, knick-knacks and more. This time around, though, I wanted to clear it up a bit. The living room should be a more calming space in the house.

Here's the left side close up:

It's complete with home design books, a few picture frames, a vase and a few empty bottles. Perfecto!

And, now for the left side:

My favorite part? The elephant, of course (thanks Home Goods!). This has a few knick-knack books (like Secrets of Longevity) and fashion books, as well as candles, frames and a sentimental plaque stating, "May you always be in an atmosphere of greatness." Again, perfecto!

I'm sure I'll make several changes throughout the next several weeks, months and even years. But this is a great start. My tips?

(1) Consider horizontal and vertical items when placing them on the shelf. To many of one make it look and feel imbalanced. 

(2) Mix and match items to avoid too much of one type of thing on one shelf. For example, mixing books, a statue and picture frame(s) instead of all picture frames.

(3) Stack! I love stacking books and adding something on top to give it more height. 

Next up for the living room re-do? The gallery wall of art!

family room re-do: floating shelves are up!

A few months ago we finally got started on a family room re-do by removing part of some built ins and adding a layer of paint. After, we also painted all the trim white to compliment the rest of the house's trim. And then, we finally checked step four off the list - hanging the new shelves! 

We were on the search for white floating shelves because we liked the idea of a clean line and no brackets showing. The width of the cabinets is 39 inches, which proved to be difficult to find. So instead we found 36-inch shelves we could center on the wall - White Big Board Shelves from The Container Store. They are made with MDF and wood veneer and all hardware was included, so we were set. 

I used the painter's tape trick to precisely mark where the holds need to go and it worked out perfectly. Definitely will be my go-to method when I want to hang things up! Once that was ready, Sam go going with the drill. 

Voila! They were up, and they were looking mighty fine. Here's a full view:

We've come a LONG way, haven't we?

Next on the list: styling them. I'm way too excited to get started! More to come.

calming down the living room

Our biggest project right now has several steps to it. After tearing down the built-ins and patching the wall, we were ready to give the family/living room another upgrade with a fresh coat of paint - from a not-so-mellow yellow to a calming gray ("Simple Gray" by Valspa Signature, #WV37006 at Lowe's).

Thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, we had four sets of hands to knock out the painting project. It was a tremendous help because this room is not small.

Here is a before shot (room has already been torn apart at this point) to really show the mustard yellow from the previous owners.

After our little helpers left, Sam and I finished out the ceiling portion of the room. I'd say we did a pretty nice job without using tape since we only had a few paint spots on the ceiling. We'll touch those up later.

Here is a fuller shot of the color. It lightens and darkens with natural light, which I love. When the trim turns white, the room will really pop!

Up next... priming and painting the trim! Yippee. I seriously can't contain my excitement. 

bye bye built-ins!

Maybe it's the nice weather, but we have FINALLY taken on another big home project. I've had an idea to paint the family room for months now, but just haven't gotten to that yet. And then, it happened. Sam shared an amazing idea.

The amazing idea means waiting longer on the painting fiesta, but I'm OK with that because it was... errr, an AMAZING idea. We have (or should I say had?) large built-ins in our family room that took up an entire wall and were bulky in size.

Family room built-ins before...

Even with the room being quite large, the built-ins always felt like a little too much. My plan originally was to just paint them and all the trim white to match the rest of the house (and ultimately brighten the space), but instead, we're going one step further by removing the top of them.

We love the storage the bottom cabinets offer, and we also love the window seat, so we kept the part we liked and said goodbye to the rest. We skipped purchasing an expensive tool and just hand-sawed each side off. While it wasn't the easiest approach, it worked just fine. Sam sawed, and I held the pieces to help keep them from moving around (again, it was cheap wood AND poorly put together, so it could be done without a fancy tool).

So, without further ado ... bye bye built-ins!

Built-ins no more!

You'll notice some deconstruction on the left wall there. We ran into a mold issue. Yikes!

At one point some water got trapped between the built-ins and the drywall. It obviously wasn't ideal, but I'm glad we found it. It was only behind the wood, so we would have never known otherwise. It hadn't gotten through the drywall or into the floor, so that was a sigh of relief.

Sam and his dad cut out the wall with the mold, and we're going to have a professional fix the drywall this week. Cannot wait to close that back up! Once the wall is done we can move on to our next step, which is painting the walls, the remaining built-ins and the room's trim. Following a good paint job, we'll add floating shelves to replace the bulky top of the built-ins.

One step at a time. More to come on this room transformation!