phantom gallery wall

azaleas are in bloom.

So after about a week of having that last blog post up, with “gallery wall” in the title, I realized that I didn’t put a damn thing about the gallery wall in that post. So this will be a post will have all that was left out of the last post, as well as a few new project previews.

The gallery wall is almost complete! That is, it is at least done enough that I can let you guys see it. I am still getting some prints made, and still adding pictures to the wall, but you should at least be able to get a general idea of the concept.

Here was what was in my dining area when I moved in:

and this was the concept I came up with. This pic was all done with photoshop (quickly, just for a draft) was done before any work was started on the wall.

To get started on the wall I removed the popcorn ceiling texture (dirty, dirty job!) and re-textured it. Next I painted the gallery wall, and then the walls on either side of the gallery wall to help get rid of all of the acoustic white walls in the house. I removed the 1984 hanging glass chandelier, and put up two tracks of track lighting on a dimmer switch. I put up a little crown molding, and hung the digital photo frame (center). From there I just hung 11×14, 8×10 and 5×7 pics in frames that I painted black. Grand total for the project was around 250 bucks (including pics thus far). Another 120 or so for the digital photo frame and larger memory card. I built a little frame for the digital photo frame out of cedar so that I could hang it the way I needed to, and also paint it black.

I also got started on the 2nd garden/flower bed. After looking at the light in the back yard, I think this spot will do much better for all the plants that need a lot of light. It will also clean up an otherwise awkward spot in my back yard. I’ll add dirt/plants over the next few weeks. After that I’ll add some stepping stones from the deck to the gate.