framing up some empty space

We've been cooking up a big framing project for the past couple of weeks.

It involves a calendar:

And this space:

As you can see, our beloved neighborhood find--an Impressionist painting of a Parisian street--is not longer cutting the mustard on the huge space above the couch. Not only is it off-center, it's just too small for that huge white space. This couch is slightly lower, and the darker color contrasts our (horribly bland rental) wall color in the least flattering way. And those other two Impressionist prints are just sort of floating there, looking haphazardly planned and tiny.

So we need something bigger to really make a statement above the couch.

I don't know about you, but I have bought more calenders than I can count with the noble intention of framing the artwork after the year was over. I have never once succeeded in my goal. Husband picked this out in a wonderful paper shop in Rhinebeck, New York, and once again we intended to frame some of the prints. Cut to now, when we have uncharted territory above the couch.

Who wouldn't want to look at vintage travel ads every day?

Did you know that we love Greece?

The vintage feel goes with the Modernist vibe of our space without going overboard. It also incorporates one of our passions--travel--into our living room. Because design should be personal!

So how are we going to accomplish this wall hanging task? With two simple tools. Eight 13x16 frames and eight ivory mats:

The frames are from West Elm's Gallery Frame collection, which is totally affordable if you buy one or two. If you buy eight...well, it's an investment. But even if and when we decide to change up our artwork, we'll have these frames forever. They're excellent quality and even came with white mats cut for 8x10 pictures!

The matboard is from a local art supplier. That was a fun Saturday morning adventure. We woke up fully intending to nosh on bagels for breakfast and head out to fabric stores for our throw pillow cover project. But I soon got overwhelmed, because fabric stores sounded like a fully-day trip, and my in-laws were visiting the next day (and I wanted the apartment to look even better than usual). So when we woke up, I suggested looking for framing materials, since the frames had arrived the day before. I love that I can stay in bed and do this searching on my iPhone. Before we got dressed I had found UADC, a short 3 subway stops from our apartment. We got our bagels and headed off to the warehouse. And a warehouse it was. We crept up some creepy stairs into a creepy hallway and looked at each other. We decided if the inside was creepy, we'd go home. Inside we found a no-frills warehouse supplier and a very thorough salesperson! It wasn't our usual shopping experience, but when the mats came to a total of $14 (and we even bought two extras to mess up on!), we were in love. They were able to match the color of the calendar paper exactly, and cut the mats to fit the frames perfectly. If I had the measurements of each of the prints, they would have cut the openings for me, too! But I love a challenge. I will definitely return for future projects, including the mounting of a gorgeous Monet print we bought in Paris almost four years ago.

Moral of the story: Never leave Queens. You can buy anything you need in Queens. In fact, come to Queens to buy things!

All this is super-duper great.  But it's not the best part.  This is the best part:

See that pink piece of paper? It's a mounting guide, and one comes with every single frame. We bought six 5x7 frames for some wedding pictures, and those came with mounting guides as well. You see, we haven't bought one of these hang and level tools, and who knows how well that would work for these particular frames (which require two nails to hang). So we can tape these suckers to the wall, see if my handy-dandy iLevel app works effectively, and voila! we'll know exactly where to place our nails. Did I mention they even have pictures of the hanging hardware in the exact location? Pretty darn genius.

I still need to pick up a good blade to cut the matboard, and a T-square to make sure my angles are good, but this project is coming along! Before long we won't even need a TV because we'll just want to stare at our walls.