Craft No. 2

As you’ll remember from all my ranting and raving in this post, our apartment is a little quirky. Our walls are made of anything but gyp, our dropped ceiling is an unnecessary and redundant six inches below the actual ceiling, and, well, all rules are subject to change. Take our bedroom, for instance.

Our bedroom is the sole recipient of a normal ceiling and a textured feature wall. I have no clue why. Our landlord never mentioned it. All I know is that I am eternally grateful I don’t have to fall asleep every night staring at ancient, gross, mineral fiber tiles. (Or a popcorn ceiling, which comes in second on my list of “Ways Not to Finish a Ceiling.) Also, I've come to realize that textured feature walls are indicative of everything that went wrong in the 80s. (Everything that went right in the 80s? Me and Bill Buckner. What else do you need?) Judging by the way they “textured” over the wall’s one outlet, I think this little art project was done by the same person who tiled over our bathroom’s plastic baseboard. Really, guys? Apparently, screwdrivers have not been invented in Pennsylvania yet.

C’est la vie. I digress. Our bed faces this wall, so after we moved in I knew it would have to be one of the first projects I tackled. Who wants to look at a big, blank wall every night? Not I! (Bert, on the other hand...)

Let's play "Spot the Ruined Outlet!" You can tell this photo is old. Those shelves were given the boot (to the dining room - one step closer to the door) awhile ago...

But the problems with decorating this wall were twofold. (Or threefold, if you count its inherent ugliness.) One, because the wall is textured, it would be difficult to patch nail holes whenever we move out (Judging by the rest of the ‘spackling’ in this place, I doubt it would be an issue, but still…If you can't beat 'em, go down swinging.) and two, any decorations large enough to fit the space would most likely be expensive and we all know I am the cheapest person alive.

So I didn’t do anything. I went to bed every night staring at a big, blank wall and didn’t complain. Because some people don’t even have walls, never mind ones with pretty decorations on them. But then – as always – my muse came to the rescue. Oh yes, you are correct: Martha and her legion of crafters came to my aid once again.

I was reading the May (or June? I should write these things down instead of just ripping out pages. My bad.) issue of Martha Stewart Living when I came across this fabulous shot:

The decorator used a field of clip frames to create one large installation. Yes! I thought. I can do that! When I first discovered clip frames (c. 2002), I firmly believed I’d discovered something on par with pasteurization and immediately went out and bought about 50 of them. (Most of them in the 4x6 persuasion, if anyone wants to take some off my hands…) Bert had photo paper. I had a plethora of wedding photos just dying to be printed out. Because the frames were small, I could use command strips to attach them to the wall and circumvent the whole nail problem. All I needed was a paper backdrop. One quick trip to Michael’s and the thing would be done. Easiest project ever.

Until I remembered that once I have an idea in my head of what I want, I usually can’t find it (aka The Great Wedding Shoe Search of 2011). So “one trip to Michael’s” turned into one trip to Michael’s, one trip to Jo-Ann’s, and two trips to A.C. Moore – once to buy against-my-better-judgment paper and once to return it and buy the stuff I should’ve bought the first time around. But finally, a cool $12 later ($7 for the paper and $5 for the command strips), I had everything I needed and this was born:

Thoughts? I like it. I like it a lot. Originally, I wanted purple paper to match Nora’s blanket and add a bit more color to the room, but cool purple paper does not exist and I was forced to create a Plan B. (There’s always the curtains. Who here thinks I could sneak purple curtains past Bert?) This paper matches our bedspread rather than contrasting with it, but I like the pattern and I think it works well.

Other thoughts? It’s too small for that wall. The scale is off. I’m toying with several ideas at the moment, like adding more clip frames or adding a larger, contrasting, ‘normal’ frame on each end. Our bedroom is so dark that I originally thought it might be nice to hang a sconce or wall light on either side, but that brings me back to the ol’ “don’t ruin the texture” problem. Ah, the joys of renting!

Clip frames and command strips are a little dicey. If the depth of the clip is larger than the depth of the strip...well, you get it. Bert and his sister have a tendency to fall off the wall.

What do you think? Any ideas?

(All the photos in the frames were taken by our awesome wedding photographer, Heather Colt. You can check out more of her work here.)