Friday Fabulous - the Gallery Wall

the new gallery wall

I just LOVE Fridays!  I'm not really sure why they hold such a special place in my heart since I gave up my Monday-Friday job quite a while ago but they are still my favourite for sure.  I guess it's because it's the gateway to the weekend and the weekend is always so full of possibilities.  This Friday I thought I'd give you a peak at what I've been working on around here.  

A few months back we decided that we needed to finish painting out our living room since we had started it, well, two years ago.  Woa!  That's right, it had been THAT long!  Since we were painting I decided to take down my picture ledges so we could fill the holes and paint the wall then maybe put the ledges back up again.  Check out my post about the picture ledges here. 

the old gallery wall with our old green walls (though it's hard to tell that the wall colour is green)

Once I had the ledges and pictures down I realized that I hadn't love loved what they looked like when they were up.  I am really glad I gave it a try but I didn't like how cramped everything felt.  Also, Mr. D knocked one particular picture off the ledge a number of times (by accident of course) and I just didn't want to deal with something that could be a danger to those sitting on the couch.  So...I left the space blank for MONTHS.  Um, it's still blank but that'll be another story for another day.  I knew I wanted to put the pictures back up but didn't want to use the ledges.  I also moved everything over to an adjacent wall so that the picture frames wouldn't get knocked off the wall anymore.  

BEFORE ... ARGG so much clutter!!! 


The buffet has become a dumping ground and I thought you might like to see the clutter up close!  We are working on getting things more organized but we're not quite there yet.  Notice the blue painter' tape on the wall.  I was marking the middle of the buffet or as close as I could get with eye-balling it so I could center my gallery.  It was a great thought but didn't quite work out as I had planned but more on that in a later post.

 AFTER

I love LOVE how the gallery uses most of the space on the wall while drawing the eye upward making the ceilings feel just a little higher.  I also love that I was able to put some space between the frames which gives the eye a little time to "breathe" and to take each photo in before moving to the next one.  It's amazing how those little spaces help the room to feel orderly and calm which really helps to make our house into a peaceful home.  I'm still working on styling the buffet so I'll spare you the cluttered mess this time.  All in all, I'm super excited about having so many special photos up.  Oh and little C noticed them the other day and stood there for a while just taking it all in.  I totally love that he can look up and see his family (near and far) any time he wants.  That's the best!

I'll do a post later on how I put everything together but until then...have a happy Friday!