The Gallery

The official title for our hallway is the Gallery. We're fancy, huh?

I got the idea to do a gallery wall from Young House Love. Check out their posts about it here and here. Before I saw their post, I had no idea what to do with the hallway. It was seriously like an unusable space. You can't put furniture there. Well, YOU may be able to, but I can't. Unfortunately ours is fairly narrow, and not at all open like the one that Young House Love has. But hey, work with what ya got.

I'm going to tell you right now, I'm not a photographer. I have a decent camera but I don't know how to use is (I know, you're all shuddering right now).

Also, I know you've seen this on Pinterest:

It is the perfect hanging arrangements. If you haven't caught on yet, perfect is not what you're going to find here. With all of the frames hanging in the gallery, I put up one piece where I decided it went and then put everything else around it. I didn't use a layout, I didn't cut out newspapers in the sizes of the frames. I put the stuff on the wall and if I didn't like it, I moved it. If you don't like holes in the wall, don't buy my house. I do intend to fix them all though before we move, so there's that.

This is far from finished. Consider this an in progress post. There are still lots of spaces I want to fill before I'm satisfied, but I got so many responses from my tweets about it the other day I figured I might as well post some now.

Long before I actually started hanging things I started collecting them. It took a while for me to get frames and the things to go in them, which is why this is still a work in progress.

Quick tip: Anything that you buy that isn't the exact color you want, and someone offers that "you can totally paint that" is probably not a good idea (I'm so not pointing fingers). At least in my experience, it doesn't turn out as well as you're envisioning. I planned to paint frames white to save money, but that was a big fat failure. I ended up throwing all of the non-white frames out and searching for only white frames. I would say definitely nail down the color/style you're going for first to avoid any instances like that.

Also, as you will see, You don't have to only have picture frames. I went room to room and looked for small things that had collected in small bowls (my dad used to make bowls on his lathe) and found ways to incorporate those things I love into the project.

This is the largest wall in the gallery.

 This wall is directly opposite. The center is our wedding guestbook.

 The corks are from our honeymoon and this is a photo that I love of my grandma.

 This is a canvas covered in fabric. Ingrid made me do it. I got this fabric (and the same thing in green) from JoAnn's. Tammy in fabric is not very helpful or pleasant. Whatev.

 The hand and key are from Hob Lob. I successfully painted them white.

 The top left frame is a cheapie I got from IKEA. The T is from Hob Lob, also painted. The photos are my two favorites of my brothers from when they were babies.

 This is between the bathroom and our bedroom. Mirror was $11 at Target. The frame was empty from Hob Lob. I think it was half off for around $10. I printed the I love you because paper, took the glass out of another frame and walla (I HATE WHEN PEOPLE SAY WALLA) instant dry erase board. For a while it said some obscene things about my boobs (give the man a marker and there is no telling what will happen), but it has been back to being nice lately (because I'm the only one using it).

 This painting came from Hob Lob and I love it. This wall needs more though. It is between our bedroom and the guest room.

 This is the view from our bedroom.

 This is a Valentine of my mom from first grade. I love it. She hates it. I gave her a big frame. She should be happy.

 This is the cork from our first picnic. It's just glued onto a small canvas Ingrid and I found at JoAnn's.

 I got this on Etsy. It is an old dictionary page with the cigars drawn on.

 The top painting was done by my friend Holli who is amazing. She already had these paintings in her Etsy shop, but I asked her if I could order them with different colors and she said it wasn't a problem. So delightful. For the love of God, if you haven't checked out her shop yet, do it now. I'll wait.

Josh is a huge fan of Marvel Girl so when he went to Summit City Comic-Con (seriously) he had one of the vendors draw her for him. The Hulk on the left was drawn for Josh by a guy who was at the comic book store.

 Bottom right is another of Holli's paintings. The small frame is a drawing of Wolverine smoking a cigar. This wall is mostly for Josh I'm realizing.

 At the Comic-Con Josh had a Wonder Woman drawn for me. It's pretty awesome. It actually looks much better in person than it does in this photo.

 Ingrid got me an awesome card. Just because. It looks pretty good with all of the other stuff too.

 Clock was $6 at Target. Bottom left is Holli's painting. Also that is the thermostat that I replaced myself. I'm still impressed that I was able to do it.

 This is our old thermostat, and as you can see, it didn't fit in with my all white theme. It had to go.

 So now you have seen more of my house than most of my family has. Congratulations. Come back anytime!
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