print

For too long, er, the past five months, our bedroom has looked like this:

Ugly paint, minimal furniture, and no art on the walls. Come to think of it, the whole house looks like that. Well, I decided I had enough. Time to take matters into my own hands. When Jenny mounted a cheapo Kinko’s print to foam core, I thought it looked cool. Then Katie did it, too. And then a light bulb went off above my head. Hellooooo, we pulled foam insulation out of the wet bar in the pool house.

So I measured, hoping the foam was at least two feet wide. Hooty hoo! The foam was exactly 24 inches wide by about 4 feet. I had already gone through our wedding photos and chose two of my favorite ‘we’re not posed smiling at the camera’ shots. Sure the first one is blurry, but I like it that way. A little more artistic and unexpected. I love that it’s sort of a ‘moment in time’ capturing the emotions we felt that June day.

After sizing and editing the photos in Photoshop, I saved the files, headed to FedEx Office (I still call it Kinko’s) and had ’em printed. For $4.50 each, I got two 24 by 36 inch prints. I headed home and started cutting the foam. Well, tried to cut it. The utility knife didn’t work on my 2 inch thick foam.

If something doesn’t work, I call Ben to ask for his ideas. He suggested using the table saw. After a little begging, he agreed to cut the pieces for me when he got home. He did and it worked like a charm. Just to be safe, I had Ben cut the pieces at 23 1/2 by 35 1/2 inches. With the sides straight, I mixed up a little, okay a lot, of kelly green paint. Because I hate being careful when I don’t have to, I painted the sides first, then mounted my photos.

Speaking of mounting photos, I started by using ModPodge, which was a mistake. It bubbled up and I had to work with it a lot. After one short edge, I searched the house, knowing I had spray adhesive somewhere. Ah ha! Found it. Outside, I lined my print up, peeled back a small bit, sprayed, then pressed it into place. With that first edge stuck down, I sprayed the rest, working in smallish lines, pressing the paper down, and smoothing it from the center out. Because I did this along (and thought getting it to lay straight would be more difficult) I didn’t trim my paper before mounting. I had a little paper overhanging the edges, so I flipped the pieces over and carefully cut along the edge using a utility knife.

To hang these big guys, I decided to just poke a hole in the back for a nail. First, I measured a few inches down, then centered.

Ben suggested adding small pieces of pipe, just to prevent the nail tearing the foam. What a thinker. He cut two small pieces of copper pipe (which we were about to take to the recycling center).

With the copper tube centered in my cross-hairs, I pushed down. I couldn’t get the pipe flush unless I pulled out some of the foam. A needle nose pliers pulled it out and the pipe stayed wedged in the foam.

I hung the pictures on either side of the big window.

Finally, something on the walls! Two big somethings.

Better yet, these prints have meaning to us.

Walking into our room doesn’t make me cringe anymore. Rather than focus on the terrible wall color, I see pretty prints that remind me what a wonderful man I have.

And it only cost nine bucks because I had the rest of the materials.

A pop of green is another fun touch.

Only three more walls to get something on, including this giant one. Oy, that blue. Hopefully we can scrape the popcorn ceilings and repaint this fall/winter.

I don’t know which is worse, the awful blue or the burnt red in the bathroom. No wait, the red is much worse. At least there’s something pretty in the room now.

What do you think of the most recent additions? What art have you added to your home? Oversized prints? A custom painting? Blurry photos that you love?