A Gallery Wall

One day, while laying in bed trying to think of another project to add to the slew of half completed wonders in my garage, I got the bright idea to create a  floor -to- ceiling gallery wall. Just for fun. I tried to shut my brain off but I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was madness and I could not stop until I had pinterest'd a million different gallery wall looks for inspiration and got to work. Im sure Mr. A thought I had finally lost my mind when he wandered out of our bedroom, just waking up for the day, to find me, in my pajamas, in the middle of the living room floor, hunkered over an extremely large piece of cardboard placing random items. You see, my first step was to take the large piece of cardboard from our last TV purchase (I knew I saved that for a reason), cut it in the exact dimensions of the wall whose fate I was planning, and start throwing stuff on it to see what fit and what didn't. It actually turned out to be a great philosophy. I had seen on Pinterest the "cut out the shape of the objects and then start taping them to the wall to get the right placement/spacing" technique, but I felt like that wasn't going to cut it for me.

1. I had NO idea what the heck I was going to use for this thing; I mean, come on, I had just dreamed it up a mere 15 minutes earlier (throwing all my in-progress projects RIGHT out the window for the time-being).
2. I couldn't get a visual picture of how this thing was going to look if I didn't have the actual objects next to each other. Enter: life-size cardboard cutout. Now, if you don't have a ridiculously large piece of cardboard laying around your house (likely), I still think this method can work for you! Simply measure the wall that this gallery will encompass, and use painters tape on your floor to establish your gallery "area". Trust me, this goes a long way in being able to visualize, properly space, see what fits and what doesn't, etc. You're welcome.

So, the next few hours looked a little something like this: run around house looking for random objects that, at one time I thought "I could use this for something". Try to find perfect mix of photos, objects, art, printables, colors, etc. trip over dog. stub toe. spread more items than needed all over living room floor so that I know what Im working with. Start placing objects. rearrange objects. rearrange objects. repeat. get in husbands way of TV-viewing. find more objects. rearrange. stand back and marvel at crazy object covered cardboard. plan paint color for thrifted items. plan photo and art options. trace all items onto parchment paper. poke a hole in parchment paper for nail-hole. tape paper to wall. start painting items. eat some food. loose some steam. take a nap.

And...that's about as far as I got that day. Over the next week, I got more and more items placed on the wall, had a few panic attacks (WHAT AM I DOING TO THIS WALL, THIS IS GOING TO LOOK RIDICULOUS!?!?AHHH!@), changed a few things, got nervous about not sticking with a specific color theme (this thing was gonna be colorful, y'all!), asked for husband's affirmation 12 times. discovered the weight limit of command strips. tore off a huge circle of paint, clear down to the drywall. found object to cover it up. looked at it a bunch to make sure it was just right. had a weird empty spot with nothing to fit (that will teach me to rearrange things without consulting my cardboard). couldn't stop staring at it. ordered vinyl arrow to fill the space. <3LOVE<3

And, the end. That was it. I finished in about a week of hemming and hawing over details and Mr. A actually said "That looks pretty sweet". I think its because I earned brownie points for finding a spot to put his Bears canvas that Ive been making him hide in the basement because it doesn't go with anything. But, I digress...

And just for fun, here's a reeeeally grainy before picture: