Travelling to the Hallway

So remember how early last week I mentioned I was redoing my hallway art and would update you on the change later in the week? Ya, I suck because I am just doing that now- a WEEK late. But there is a good reason for the delay and I will explain later in the post.

So the current hallway looked like this:

And now it looks like this:

Hurrah!! It is all fun maps!! I will get into an explanation, but let me first tell you how I installed this art. You already know that I fixed all the holes and prepped my wall for some big changes. Then I went out and bought 6 Ikea Ribba frames to add into the 4 I already owned. I then laid them on the floor in order to find a configuration I liked. I had already decided I wanted to hang the frames tightly. I came out with two ideas:

I liked the first one a lot, but I didn't choose it for two reasons
1. the frames are only 9x11" and this is a looooong hall so it might seem too small in the space
2. it would be difficult to add to as I travelled!

So I went with the simplistic option two!

In order to make sure I hung these properly (they needed to sit tightly together so I had to be a pro-star hanger. First thing I did was make templates of my frames and cut them out. I used newspaper, but I found it way too flimsy so I don't recommend it.

I then measured the length of my frames across to make sure I was putting it on a good place on the wall (I wanted to reflect the size of the bathroom wall). I used painter's tape on the wall to mark off the space.

Then I hung my templates on the wall using painter's tape. I was then able to mark off where all the nails needed to go, nail into the wall, rip off the paper and VOILA! Hung art!!

Ok, I didn't get it 100%. I blame the flimsy newspaper. But it only needed a bit of adjusting and frankly, the holes are all covered. haha. The top frames wouldn't hang properly since they butted onto the frames beneath them, but I used a bit of sticky tack to secure them onto the wall.

But you know what? When all was said and done- I didn't love it. Then I realized it was too small so I went to Ikea and bought 4 more frames (hence the week's delay in posting!) and I also decided to use horizontal frames at the ends because maps always seemed to be horizontal!

And here is the final, FINAL, wall:

Yay! It is super awesome now! And you know what it cost me? $78.99 for frames ($6.99 each and I already owned 4 frames) and $10 for a set of maps of Italy. It is a HUGE, personal, and interesting conversation piece for under $100. And because they are just frames, they can always be reused for other projects for years to come.

Tomorrow I will go a bit more in-depth about why I chose to do this project. Stay tuned :)