Another Nesting Update: Gallery Wall

Happy Thursday, readers!  I don't have a ton of time tonight because I am sooooooo sleepy, so this post is going to be a little short slash boring.

Remember the nesting post from a while back where we were trying to figure out what kind of gallery wall, frames, etc. we wanted?  I originally envisioned something with all of the same frames and very symmetrical.  Dan had another idea, and for once I am glad he had an opinion.  We bought the frames a while back on sale but have just been hanging onto them until we got a spare second to figure out how and where we wanted to hang them.  This past weekend we finally got it together and completed the gallery wall project! 

It was a LOT more involved than I thought it was going to be.  First, we laid the frames out on the floor and rearranged them for about an hour until we finally found a pattern we liked:

So exciting!  The next part was harder, took a REALLY long time, and was way more involved than we thought it would be.  Measuring where to put these things took ages, and then once we figured out where the edges should go, we had to do even more measuring to figure out where to actually put the nails so that they would hang properly (did that make any sense?).  Here is the before:

And a few of the in process:

We ended up measuring the amount of space between the photos from the floor layout on the right hand and bottom sides only (after measuring the space on the wall where we wanted to hang them).  There was no way to tell whether it was really even laying on the floor, so we filled in the rest from there.  Finally, several hours and a lot of curse words from Dan later, the finished product: 

The layout ended up being only slightly different than the one we planned on the carpet before hand, but I love the way it turned out.  The unit that controls the downstairs temperature hangs on this wall, so rather than put the gallery wall above it, we decided to put it on the left side.  I'm sure we will have a lot more pictures we want to hang when Baby Geronimo arrives, so this way it leaves us some extra space on that wall  (in addition to all of the other blank walls in our house, as we have been there for 6 months and I have yet to hang a single photo...whoops).  I have promised Dan that next time we will not pick frames quite so complicated.

The only thing that's left is to fill them with photos!  While I like the way the black & white ones that are already in the frames look, Dan requested color photos.  Since his opinion did not lead us astray on the gallery wall to begin with, I think I'll go with it.  Picture ordering is on the agenda for this weekend.

YAY Friday!

Sarah

Nesting!

These days, I feel like I am a nesting machine.  There is so much that we want to do around the house, and now that Baby Baum is on his or her way we have even more to do to get ready!  My weekend "to do" as of this morning was:

• Go to Michael's to look at picture frames for my as of yet non-existent gallery wall, because I have some awesome coupons
• Go to Old Navy to use our Groupons, which are about to expire
• Go to the Flea Market at the N.C. State Fairgrounds to see if we can find any rocking chairs we like
• Go through my closet and do yet another much needed clean-out to make room for maternity clothes
• Run various not-so-fun errands, like the book store and grocery store, before going out of town for work for the week

I know the list does not look like a lot, but y'all, it is SO HOT outside that all I want to do is lay around in my air conditioned house, so if we could have gotten through even half of this list I would have been happy.  Luckily, the hubby was on board with the to-do list for the first time ever, and with some prodding we ventured out for the  morning!  I am happy to report that we accomplished the first 3 items on our list today.

I cannot believe that we have been in this house for 5 months and I do not have a single picture hanging.  Not a single one!  We have just been so busy with both work and play, and our weekends always seem to fill up and go by quickly, so I haven't gotten around to it. We decided a while back that a gallery wall in our house would be awesome.  My original idea was to do all of the same size frames (I like the symmetry of it) as such:

Photo Courtesy of High-Heeled Foot In The Door Blog



Anyone who knows my husband, however, knows that he always has his own ideas, which are 100% of the time different than what I had in mind (hence we will not be discussing baby names for a LONG while):

Photo Courtesy The Nester

As in all things marriage-related, we ended up compromising: we got different sized frames, but the frames are all the same (i.e. all thick black frames).  Some of the matting is black and some is white.  And on top of it, we scored a GREAT deal on said frames at Michaels - all frames were 40% off PLUS I had a coupon for 25% off our full purchase of sale and regular priced items.  Wahoo!  I also have a coupon for 50% off the entire site at Snapfish, so I will be filling said frames soon.  I can't wait to see how this wall turns out.  Updates to come later!

We also found our dream rocking chairs (thanks Baums & Eakers!) and swing at the fair ground flea market, and guess what, they were on super sale!  We got two black rocking chairs and a matching swing from the Savannah Collection by New River Furniture.  A co-worker suggested that we go see Leonard at The North Carolina Hammock Company, and we are SO glad we did!  He was very friendly and helpful, was having a huge sale, and gave us a GREAT deal.  He's got a shop at the Fair Grounds, as well as a warehouse in Chapel Hill, so go see him if you're in the market for beautiful, high-quality outdoor furniture!  Here's what we scored (but in black, not stained as shown):



Savannah Rocking Chair



Savannah Porch Swing

And here's Dan pricing the chairs and swing on his phone in preparation for negotiations testing out the goods:

And finally, here is what the beautiful new haven on my front porch will look like:

Photo Courtesey Scotland Antique Blog

A girl can dream, right?  If I could only talk my husband into porch fans...it's already wired and everything!  Shouldn't be too hard, unless you've met him you wouldn't think.  :-)  Stay tuned for photos of the real deal.

Here's to knocking out the remaining two items on my list tomorrow, because now it's naptime.  Happy Weekend!

Sarah