Making A Gallery Wall: Planning

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I'm officially obsessed with salon walls. Way back on this art tour post I mentioned wanting to create a fantastic mix-matched gallery wall in our living room.

Here are some examples I think are particularly drool worthy.

Picture From Pinterest, Someone Please Tell Me Where It's Really From

 Love...everything, really. I think this pic was originally from Domino, maybe?

Picture From The Thompson Family

 Love the mix of vintage art and crewel work.

Photo From Design Sponge

My first step was gathering together all the "art" I wanted to use on the wall. Here were the winners.

These bits and pieces are just hung up on the nails from my original, very sad attempt at making a collage wall. These pieces include some lithographs on the English Lake district, the anchor I made for J, the Paul Deltlefsen prints I bought at two different thrift stores on the same day, and the amazing Vincent Van Gogh I shared on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. It still has the original, 1950s era Macy's price tag. $13.50. Yep. Love the frame.

More pieces destined for our salon wall. The embroidered quote I made way back in the day, a vintage souvenir Pike's Peak tray (somewhere J and I both visited and loved before we ever met each other), a super vintage sailboat tray, a needlework cover of the Saturday Evening Post, a Richard Nixon album, and some other artworks.

I don't think I've ever showed these two on the blog before. We actually bought these on our honeymoon. Love. Them. They have Kresge stamped on the back of them, meaning they are probably from the now defunct dime store. That makes them even more awesome.

Now, the problem with my lovingly thrift scored frames and art work is they often need a little work. None of the pieces here had workable framing hardware.

For example, this vintage piece apparently produced by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There was a weird twine thing going on, but no real way to hang it.

So I fixed it. A hot glue gun, and some framing hooks. Glue the hook onto the back of any piece of art (this also works great on trays or other less traditional pieces you'd like to hang). Let it dry. And...that's it.

On other pieces, like the framed quote, the original wire used to hang it had stretched and framed with time. The easiest fix is to snip out the original wire and replace it. All hardware stores carry frame wire. Super easy.

So tomorrow I'll be back (maybe with a video!) about laying out and hanging my salon wall. Super exciting! I've only wanted to do this FOREVER.