Filling a big empty wall on a budget

Update: Check out my new site Shapingthenest.com for an updated version of this post. I added lots of info on how to make your wall budget friendly!


One of my favorite things to do till fill an empty wall is to do a gallery wall of pictures. As I mentioned last week I had plans to do that behind our sofa.

Here are the results:

Obviously, I have a few more frames to fill with prints but I'm happy with the arrangement. And I got the new lamps I needed too. I love them so far. They on sale for much cheaper in the store but I got them here.

And a close up. You may see that something on my mirror. Yes, those are Army men. Cruz added his own little touch and I couldn't take them down yet.

Normally, my method for gallery walls is to cut out several scrap pieces of paper the same size of the frames. Then I arrange them on the wall using tape. It's very forgiving because you can arrange a bunch and there are no holes in the wall. After you like the design, hang your frames right over the paper. It's easy!

This time around though, my frames are way bigger and it would have taken a ton of paper to use the method above.  So I hung as I went. It was difficult. There are lots of different ways to hang a gallery wall. But, I do have a few tips that have worked for me on making it look put together. These are for if you do the random frame method like me.

#1 Hang your biggest frames toward the center of your arrangement. Smaller ones on the outside.
#2 Balance. It's hard to describe exactly how to do that as a lot time you just have to use your own intuition.
#3 Find an inspiration picture.
#4 Space your frames somewhat evenly.
#5 Go for a theme.

Obviously, none of those are hard fast rules but it's a good starting point to work from. 

Here's another arrangement I did at our old house.

And some of my favorite inspiration.

 
 The inspiration for the arrangement in our first house. Source


A formal arrangement. Source

 

A great way to disguise a TV a bit. Source

Decorating the living room- and my take on decorating in general.

We still have another ceiling in the den to remove popcorn in and paint walls before we move on to new wood floors in the living, dining, and den area. I'm super excited. Even though the living room isn't finished, I plan on decorating in there a little bit. It will be so nice to have one room semi put together while we tackle other projects.

Decorating is the fun part for me.  Decorating is interesting because it is totally personal and what one person loves another person will hate. There are so many styles.

When it comes to decorating, I naturally would love to have really nice stuff. BUT we have a budget and most important of all we have boys. Ours are very active and it would be totally ridiculous to go out and buy an expensive couch or chair . So I'm still having fun decorating but everything I buy has to be cheap, washable (at least somewhat), and hard to break.

So on to the living room. Here's the plans so far now that all the furniture is settled back in.

First step, is to put up a gallery wall full of pictures perhaps? I also bought this sweet set of antlers months ago on a flash sale site. They are going to be incorporated somehow too.

Also, you may have noticed from the pictures this room has no overhead lighting. Because of that lamps are a must have! I've been on the hunt for a pair that are not glass or ceramic because as mentioned above, I don't want to worry about them breaking.

Lastly, I'm hoping to add window treatments. I'm thinking shades for the bay window, and a curtain/ shade mix for the dining room window.

Living and dining area is all painted!

We are breathing a huge sigh of relief, mixed with excitement. Another project is done!!! We painted the walls Benjamin Moore Horizon. The room looks and feels so much better now.

A before picture

After

Much brighter and happier! I'm still working on getting furniture moved back in. More on that and decorating soon!

Growing, growing, growing!

I was thinking I would post a garden update each month but I am seriously amazed at how fast things grow here sometimes. We went to a family reunion in Washington D.C. and were gone for 9 days. I was excited to see if my garden would see be alive when I got back. Yay! It was! I was surprised to see a few of my tomato plants grew at least a foot maybe more while we were gone. My neighbors told me it rained a lot which helps.

 This picture was taken May 31st.

 I took this 10 days after the above picture- June 9th. Crazy! Cruz loves going out there each day after school and looking at the plants. It's fun to see how much the kids enjoy gardening too.

Tomato close up

 Tomatillos

 Lemon Squash- I've been diligently checking for squash bugs under leaves and so far so good!

Ground Cherries. Its fun to see the little lanterns they grow in.

Basil which became last night's dinner- Pesto pasta :)

Orange peel on the walls

Where we last left off the living/dining area was looking like this:

We invested in a spray texture hopper because we will need for all of our bathrooms as well after the wallpaper comes down. We got ours here.

 

 It worked great, especially considering we were matching the other texture above.
The process was simple. We used a lightweight joint compound (pre-mixed in the box) and watered it down to a thick pancake batter consistency. After stirring pour in the hopper and spray. I should also mention it uses an air compressor.

A close up of the results. After it was mostly dry I did a light sanding and it looks like a pretty close match to the original texture. Up next...priming and painting!

The garden- June

A week ago Cameron grabbed some free mulch for me at our compost facility. I wanted to put it between the beds to keep weeds at bay. I had some really good helpers for that. It was funny, Cameron started to unload it and asked for help. The boys wandered around and played but didn't want to help. The moment he called out 10 cents a bucket they were all over there in a second helping.

I have my soaker hoses on a timer now. Cameron taught me a lesson in fluid mechanics in the midst of getting those working. I'm sure most people already know this but at the splitter for the hoses I had one longer hose hooked up and one shorter (it was a different set up than you see here below). I was upset because the shorter hose was working and the longer hose the water was barely dripping out. He told me they both need to be the same length to have equal water pressure. Of course I didn't believe him. And well... he was right :) Publicly admitting that here :)

Since I didn't get my strawberries in the ground in time, we went to a you pick place a couple weeks ago. I made strawberry syrup, canned strawberry jam, and we ate the rest.

Wallpaper in the dining room

 Above is a picture of the dining area before we moved in. This area is the other side of the living room. The previous owners didn't use it as a dining area but we plan to use it as intended.

Early on, as in 3-4 months ago, the boys took it upon themselves to remove the wallpaper. Apparently, they didn't like it either.

The unfortunate part was we got started a little too soon on the project. At this time we were working furiously to prepare for the garden, then build the garden, etc... So it stayed this way till now (kind of embarrassing when people came over).

The good news is the garden is done! The ceiling is free of popcorn texture! Which means the rest of project is ready to get done. Over the weekend we removed the rest of the wallpaper and trim. We also puttied holes and rough spots. Next up, we are going to texture that area to match the rest of the walls (our walls are orange peel texture). Then after that prime and paint! I'm super excited to at least be able to decorate a little bit in here while I patiently wait to get wood floors :)