The Wall is Finished! (for now)

    A while back, I hinted at a project that I was working on in our living room: we had a huge empty wall in our living room/dining room that needed some love. So, after living in this apartment for over a year and growing weary of staring at the giant empty canvas of wall, I decided to hang a collection of our photographs and art on it!

Our Ikea Bounty

    When we went to Ikea, we picked up a few frames and a picture ledge to use on the wall. We weren't sure exactly what we were going to do yet, so we got a small assortment of things: two Verserum frames ($1.99), three Ribba shadow-box frames ($9.99 each), and a Ribba picture ledge ($9.99). These were supplemented with several frames and a mirror that we already had. We used the shadow-boxes to display some artsy CD covers and the frames to showcase some photographs of our travels and our wedding.

    I began the task of hanging everything by laying it all out on the floor of the living room in order to gauge how it would all look. After hours of deliberation, I decided to line everything up on the wall along an invisible bottom line in order to give the decorating a nice clean look. After measuring the space I had to work with on the wall and the sizes of the frames, I had a rough plan for how I would hang everything.

I taped the bottom edge to make sure everything lined up.

    Next, I put masking tape along the wall where the bottom line would be and marked where the edges of each frame would be. Then I hung the frames, starting along the tape line and working my way up the wall. In this way, the pictures remain evenly spaced and have a nice clean bottom edge to them.
    The actual hanging only took about forty minutes, which I thought was not bad. After everything had been hung and leveled, I carefully removed the tape. I still have a few more things I would like to hang: two small picture frames above the octagonal mirror, another frame above the picture ledge, and an artsy concert poster above the shadow box on the right side. All in all though, I am quite satisfied!

I worked left to right, as there is a built in shelf on the right.

The finished product! (for now)

      

Update: 12 by 2012!

Last weekend, Sean and I finally found some time to work on things around the house. And that means I get to cross off two items on my list! Saturday, I took a couple of hours to re-organize my closet and I'm so happy with how it turned out. And it wasn't really as bad as I thought. I had just let some things pile up, but now everything has a place. I even made some room for a few extra things laying around our bedroom. And the floor is completely clear now... I told Sean it feels like a mini-dressing room! Here are some pictures of the transformation:

BEFORE:

AHH! Look at all that stuff on the floor!

That luggage was not in a good spot

AFTER:

That's an organizer from Ikea; my overnight bag is behind
it because I'll be using it so much in the coming weeks!

Look! You can see the floor now!

I hid that luggage back in the corner

Up there are travel bags, a bag of bags (purses/clutches)
and a box of winter scarves, hats and gloves

I even re-organized my clothes!

And while all that was happening, here's what Seany was doing upstairs:

Voila! Isn't it pretty?

It's not quite finished yet, but it's looking good! We have about three more frames to add. So I'm crossing those two items off my 12 by 2012 list! As for some of the other items, we've got some ideas going for our Christmas card, I've started organizing some of our wedding photos for the albums, and I'm hoping to keep up with my blogging in the coming weeks. Happy Tuesday everyone!

I Love Scarves!

It's starting to get chilly around here, and, for me, that means it's time to break out my scarf collection! I love wearing scarves, and they are probably my favorite accessory. Adding a scarf makes it easy to stretch your wardrobe and add an extra element to any outfit. Over the weekend, I was showing my family a few ways that I tie my scarves and they showed me some of their ideas too! So I decided to make this video to show a couple of different ways to tie a scarf:

So there you have it! What are some of the ways you tie your scarf? I always love learning new ways!

p.s. Surprise! I got a haircut this weekend too!