Hooray For Pictures!

If there's one thing I hate, it's a blank wall. I don't know why, but it gives me agida. So, you can only imagine how much I've been wanting to fill the huge void above my bed for the past five months.

Horrible blank space...

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I've finally done it. The void has been filled. Check it out.

The first thing I did was lay out all my frames on the floor and arrange them in a fun design. I've been wanting to put a "gallery wall" into the apartment somewhere, and figured that filling this huge expanse of empty wall was the perfect opportunity.

Then, I used a trick I've seen all over the internet recently where you cut pieces of paper to the size of each of your frames, which you then tape to the wall to make sure you actually like what you're doing before hammering in nails (drilling screws in my case) or using up command strips.

It's a good thing I did that because I hated the way all those frames looked up there. It was too cluttered, too big, and just plain overwhelming. I even re-arranged it a few times and took out some of the frames, but I could never quite make it look the way I was envisioning.

That's when I remembered the collage frame I had picked up at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for $3 because it was damaged (no glass). So, I scrapped my original idea, mocked-up the new frame, and put a few frames around it.

Much better. Although, still not quite what I was going for.

But I knew I liked the big frame, so I went ahead and hung that, so I could arrange the other ones around it more easily.

I went though several different arrangement options before I finally chose this. It may not be a gallery wall, but I love it anyway.

I was planning on hanging all the frames with command strips, but I read the box and it specifically says not to do that, due to the possibility of the strips loosing their stickyness, falling on your head while you're sleeping, and killing you. So, I opted for screws. Hopefully I'll have some help with the spackeling come move-out time... oh, mom?

The collage is absolutely my favorite part because it's got most of my favorite kitties. The other nice thing is that since these frames are all hung with screws, it will be easy to switch out the pictures if I get bored or new ones I like better come along.

clockwise from top: Sam, Frisk, Snickers, Skits