Give life to your walls

I distinctly remember sitting in the waiting room at the dealership during a routine service appointment for my truck — and fumbling through a few periodicals and magazines until I stumbled across a design book that caught my eye. It detailed a few creative ways to enhance the decor of your home by hanging picture frames on your walls in a very artistic manner. It also gave me a few ideas of my own.

I have very little open wall space in my home and studio. I like to say, "I have littered my walls with life." From the moment you enter my place, photos, in a variety of frames, can be seen at every turn. There are family and vacation photos, live band performance shot, and, of course, pictures of my two dogs. And every once IN a while, I go through a phase I’ve coined "picture-frame therapy" — that time when I feel existing photos should be swapped out for newer ones. I’ve always kept old photos in existing frames behind the new photo. That way, it doesn’t feel as though I’m erasing the past, just updating to more recent memories. Usually when I undertake this process, I also introduce a few new groups of frames while I’m at it.

Linear layout

I like things equidistant and centred. Even when things seem random from up close, I have usually arranged them to provide symmetry from afar. Here are two examples of this in my house.

1. The wall going up the stairwell to my studio seemed extremely empty, until I strategically positioned 17 frames of various sizes in an upward mosaic that followed the stairs’ ascent. I placed the frames against each other without any spacing. In doing so, the individual frames almost become one entity — a piece of art unto itself that fits perfectly within that wall space.

2. At the top of my staircase in the reading room, I assembled 20 frames of various sizes into a group of two rows, whereby the low edge of the upper row of frames and the high edge of the lower row of frames are separated by a constant horizontal spacing. This very same spacing also separates every frame. This pre-planned layout creates a patterned mosaic of photos from afar.

Tumbler layout

Multi-photo frames are great, when you wish to group certain photos together.

In my living room, between one end table and a partial wall, is an area I’ve dedicated to my dogs. Their wooden crate full of toys and a pet bed fills this space on the floor. It always felt empty above their pet bed — it occurred to me to hang some doggie pics on the wall. The shape of the free space on the wall, however, seemed somewhat awkward to fill. I had an idea to use a series of frames that would start small and successively get bigger as frames moved towards the dogs area, and as the free wall space allowed.

I came across some multi-frames that were on sale — they were strange, in that each of 11 individual frames was attached to the next frame in a very haphazard and cock-eyed manner, one over the next. I stared at them for a few minutes and then it dawned on me — purchase two of these multi-frames, and manipulate one of them into three separate and smaller multi-frames to satisfy my intentions.

I removed four of the 11 individual frames from the one multi-frame, and glued three of the individual frames together in a manner of choice. This resulted in a seven multi-frame, a three multi-frame and a frame by itself. Several areas on the manipulated frames showed where they had been pulled apart. So I sanded the rough areas and sprayed all the multi-frames with a few coats of dark brown paint, which closely matched the original colour.

When things were dry, I positioned the original 11 multi-frame, and the manipulated seven multi and three multi-frames, as well as the remaining single frame on the wall as intended — from smallest to biggest. The effect seems to work — the photos seem to tumble towards the dog area, in a cascading manner.

Make it fit

I also bought a different type of multi-frame, which could hang vertically on a narrow wall, adjacent to the closet when entering the bedroom. Unfortunately, a light switch prevented it from being hung at eye level... or did it?

I held the multi-frame up against the wall at approximately the intended height and realized that although the light switch was in the way, the switch plate was slightly smaller than the individual photo frame that sat on top of it. So I removed the glass of that one individual photo frame and hung the entire multi-frame in a manner that centred the switch-plate in that individual photo frame. Voila, problem solved!

There are no rules when hanging photo frames in your own home. I came across a few ideas I had never seen before, and tried them out. I also came up with a few of my own. Abide by your own set of rules — because it’s never wrong if it feels right — to YOU. And of course, it should always be about the frame’s subject matter, anyway…

Good luck with your own picture frame therapy — litter those walls!