Scary Blank Walls II: Gallery walls for everyone

If you're on Pinterest, you'll know that gallery walls are all the rage right now. Well maybe they've always been popular but it seems people on Pinterest really like them. Here's a few examples...oh wait the search function on Pinterest is broken again. WHY DO YOU TORMENT ME SO PINTEREST. Ok, over to you google.

The matchymatchy:

                                                                            Source

The anti-matchymatchy:

                                                                                (Source)


 The 'where did the wall go':

 

Source

So in an effort to beat yet another scary blank wall (SBW) into submission, I gathered up a bunch of frames I already had. These used to form a gallery wall along the staircase in our old house. I wonder how pissed the new owners were when they moved in and saw all the holes.

There are all kind of tutorials about how to 'create' a gallery wall. Mostly they involve spending hours cutting out templates of your frames and taping them to the wall.

 

Source

 

Yeah ummm who has the time patience for that? I would rather freestyle because I'm a lazy good for nothing rebel like that.

Basically I *briefly* laid out my frames on the floor until I was happy with how they looked, identified the centre frames, nailed those to the wall first, and then worked outwards from there, trying to keep a uniform spacing between each frame. I admit as it stands right now, it could maybe take up more space, or involve more colour. I can still add to it, or swap out frames if I want it to look less 'matchymatchy' and more eclectic!

Look, a cute baby!

Scary blank walls

New (bigger) house + pathetically curated art collection + poor taste in art in general = lots and lots of very scary blank walls in my house. I honestly don't know what's wrong with me. It's like, I know I despise blank walls, but I just can't commit to putting anything on them.

The space over our living room couch was bothering me in particular. It's the first room you can see when you enter our house, and it's the only thing you can see if you happen to be peeking in the front window. What will the neighbours think!?! Will they think we're squatters? Weird Scandinavian minimalists? Puritans? Something had to be done. Fast.

I didn't want to commit to anything expensive, given that I sometimes don't know when things are ugly. So I took a trip to Ikea. For fro-yo! And also, 8 of these:

(Malma Frames, $2.99cdn)

Then I picked up some Krylon spray paint in sterling silver at Michael's.

 Then I strapped on my face mask, trudged out to the shed and spray painted the suckers! Tip: wear rubber gloves, because the paint drips and goes all over your trigger finger. I was like gold finger, only with a silver finger! He loves only silver...only silver...he loves only silver (not the same!)

Finally, because I have a fear of commitment, I picked up some 3M command strips,

 And with the help of my husband and his cool new laser level Christmas present, stuck them on the dreaded blank wall! This is what we got:

Extreme close-up:

Whew, glad that's taken care of! Now the neighbours will think we're perfectly normal....for now.

MTV cribs: Sophia edition

Obviously when I found out I was having a girl, I went nuts planning the perfect little girl's nursery. It's beyond cliche but in my vision it had to be a) pink, b) pink and c) chandelier-ed. I'm not even a "pink" sort of girl, but this is what I had to have. In our old house, the walls were blue (Benjamin Moore Iced Slate) already, and I thought pink accents would look pretty darn great against them.

Our old nursery, here:

                      (PBK comfort chair, PBK Avery rug, Ikea Birkeland dresser, mirror and bird cage from Home Sense)

And here:

           (Ancient bookshelf, painted white. Basket from Ikea, ribbon from Michaels. Birdcage and art from HomeSense.)

And here:

                                        (Crib from Sears, Sheets and bedskirt from PBK, wall decals from this Etsy shop).

And those are the only pictures I have from the old room, because I'm forgetful an idiot and didn't take any more. It wasn't until I had her room all packed up for the move that I realized I didn't fully record how her first room looked. I was so distraught over this I considered unpacking and putting everything back together again. But then I drank some wine and forgot about it. 

Her new room in our new house is essentially the same size and layout as her old one, so her room is essentially the most complete room right now. Except it's a horrible shade of beige. And the pink rug is no more, since her new room is carpeted and I'm not the type to put rug on top of carpet. Those people exist. I don't know any of them but I've heard rumours. 

I have the can of paint to finish off her room sitting in the closet and I'm hoping to do it this week. It's Zircon by Sherwin Williams and I think it will look fab. I thought going with a more true grey instead of a blue-grey would class it up a bit. Cause you know, I'm classy and my kid is classy ok. 

UPDATE: Still haven't painted her room. Because I'm lazy. But when I do, boy, am I gonna post some pictures! 

She's 1, now what?

The point of this blog thing that no one will ever read:


My daughter turned one on December 31st. Yeah, new year's eve!! Party!! She was born at 10:52pm to be exact, 1 hour and 8 minutes away from being born at midnight and getting her picture in the local paper. I stayed home with her her entire first year, and am planning to continue staying home with her for now. Three reasons: Because I'm lucky, because I don't want to miss a thing, and because I hate working, it blows.

The first year of a child's life is a series of great milestones and achievements, I felt like I had this month by month checklist of things that she would/should be accomplishing. That was my job - to feed/change/rock to sleep, and to endlessly consult my psycho mom checklist to make sure she was sitting/crawling/standing on time. Now we've made it to a year and I can relax a bit and refocus my attention on things I used to love, like brushing my hair and reading books that don't catalog all the various childhood illness that my kid probably has. Also,  try and focus my limited attention span on something constructive, like this blog!

We also recently bought a new house. It's a blank slate of epically beige proportions, beautiful spaces and so much potential. So this is where I'll chronicle our life, as we raise our awesome kid,  and create the perfect home for her to grow in!