Hey there, October! The onset of Fall has really kicked me into gear with house projects, which is a good think seeing as how another big one kicks off this week. Did someone say One Room Challenge?! Aside from the start of the ORC this week, I’m here today with a Curious Little Gentleman Big Boy Room update! And its more than a sneak peek…I’m going to share an entire wall of the room with you! Pretty sweet, huh?!
It’s no secret I am a “more is more” kind of decorator and that I never shy away from the collected look, especially when talking about the walls. For the new big boy room, I was pretty positive I wanted to create a gallery wall over his bed, with all my favorite photos and some cool art showcasing his favorite things relating to the Curious Little Gentleman theme. However, after putting a little more thought into it, I decided to go with the idea of hanging several larger items on the wall instead of a typical gallery wall made up of an array of 8″ x 10″ or 11″ x 14″ frames.
I wanted to make a statement.
Today, I’m sharing with you how I created an over-sized art gallery wall to fill up the entire wall with 5 key pieces. And the 5th isn’t really a piece of art, but rather a piece of furniture! I’ll be sharing more on this crazy awesome piece soon 😉
STEP 1: ASSESS THE SITUATION BY MEASURING AVAILABLE WALL SPACE
In order to build this gallery wall, I took into consideration the main aspects of the wall including furniture that was placed on or near the wall — his bed, the nightstand/bookcase and his new floating desk & stool [both of which I am absolutely in love with!].
Once these items were in place in the room, I was able to fully assess the situation by measuring how much empty wall space was available. After determining the dimensions of wall space availability, I began noting my ideas for the wall.
STEP 2: DETERMINE YOUR KEY PIECES & BUILD OFF OF THEM
In other words, what do I already have and what do I need to get? I had picked up this metal “?” early on in the big boy room planning stages and decided it would be a cool addition to the wall. It wasn’t your typical rectangular frame and had some dimension to pop off the wall. Having a uniquely shaped object, helps break up the monotony of typical art pieces hanging in a gallery wall. I also had an idea for a DIY art piece to hang over the biggest’s bed [full tutorial to come!] which still left me quite a bit of wall real estate to cover.
Metal “?” piece
DIY Acrylic piece
photo or silhouette
art
I thought 2 larger pieces would fill the remaining space nicely. In creating the big boy room, I wanted to do or use something that captured him as he is right now.
I loved using baby pictures and even a maternity photo of me and T in his nursery, but thought it would be pretty awesome to have a large image of the biggest now, at age 4. And my idea for the last piece of the puzzle turned out to be an art print I found while out running errands one day. The colors were perfect and the image of a Ferris wheel reminded me of curiosity and adventure, tying it back the “Curious Little Gentleman” theme. Thanks goodness for the theme. Distractions come quite easily to me and having a solid idea with a name attached to it definitely helped keep me on track!
So, a photo and an art print would complete the gallery wall.
STEP 3: PICK YOUR FINAL PIECES & ORDER CUSTOM FRAMING
This step was the best of them all! “Custom” shouldn’t be a scary word and certainly shouldn’t be associated with expensive. In fact, getting my pieces custom framed with Framebridge, was the easiest part of the entire wall! It was a completely seamless experience and totally hassle-free. For the photograph of H, I was able to upload it on the site, select the size and frame and boom. It was shipped directly to me in just a few days! Once you upload your image, you can determine what size you’d like and even crop it for further customization. I cropped mine, so that the image was 20″ x 15.17″ — from there, it will tell you the size of your finished piece. Mine ended up being 26.01″ x 21.18″. Perfect for adding a “big piece” to the wall!
Sigh. That beautiful wood grain and that glossy finish. Seriously, the Jambi frame is GORGEOUS! It’s described as a masculine frame, so what better option for a “big boy” space. I mean…I’m not quite ready to characterize him as that yet, but it’s perfect for his room!
Getting the other piece [the ferris wheel art print] handled was pretty simple, too! At Framebridge.com, I indicated the size of my piece, selected a frame and then told them how I wanted to send it to them. I opted for them to send me a flat mailer, free of charge, in which I would insert my piece once the mailer arrived and drop it off with a pre-paid shipping label. That’s it!
*NEWS FLASH! All new Framebridge customers can receive 15% off their first order by entering the code “BLISS15” at checkout!!
STEP 4: WAIT FOR PIECES TO ARRIVE AND HANG ‘EM UP!
The fun part! And shouldn’t be intimidating at all! I’ve never been one to create paper templates to tape to the wall and then hang the gallery wall frame-by-frame. I usually just start nailing! The nice part about creating a gallery wall with large scale pieces is that there is less measuring and certainly less room for error! And what part do you think makes T happy about this particular gallery wall? Less nail holes!! And no, he didn’t even bother to ask, “Another gallery wall?!” He just knows by now that if I’m working on a new space, there is a preeetty good chance there will be one ha!
That’s the wall! 5 key pieces that nearly fill the entire bed wall!
I loved sharing this wall idea with you and I’m am pretty darn excited to share the rest of the room with you, too! There are quite a few more walls next up in the spotlight! The Curious Little Gentleman Big Boy Room Reveal is on it’s way soon, so please stay tuned! Full source list, too 😉
Don’t forget to enter “BLISS15” to receive 15% off your 1st Framebridge order! And also, don’t forget to pin this for later…
I’ll see you back here next with Week 1 of the Fall 2016 One Room Challenge. And nope, I’m not spoiling the surprise. You’ll have to come back to see what room I’m going to be making over!!
Have a great day!
* A big thank you to Framebridge for providing the custom framing for these two items. The beautifully framed pieces were the perfect addition to the big boy room gallery wall. All thoughts, opinions, styling and photographs are my own!
