I love NY. With its chaotic energy of lights and sounds, five-star venues, people, traffic, and high rises, there is also a simple organizational order to this city’s layout-numerical avenues running north to south, and numerical streets running east to west; one balancing the other…a sort of yin-yang of city engineering design, if you will.
This philosophy of design and order can be applied to our dwellings as well. When decorating our homes, we know the best way to personalize and “warm” our space is to hang pictures of friends and family. But, when it comes to actually designing this decorative touch, we’re often left with unwanted nail holes and uneven spacing.
You’ve seen it: the cluttered and jumbled display of mixed frame sizes, colors, and materials with photos in color, black and white, sepia, or the dreaded faded laser print, completely taking over the energy of the room, distracting the eye, and creating the perpetual feeling of disorder. Fyeww! There is an easier way!
We can certainly take a page from the streets of New York City when organizing our picture walls. Earlier this month, I watched an episode of “Dear Genevieve” on HGTV where host Genevieve Gorder gives this quick tip on organizing and hanging pictures/photographs that takes minutes and looks like you hired a professional designer to create the effect: photo wall templates.
Here’s how it works:
1a. You can order differently designed templates on-line (i.e. The Perfect Picture Wall). Here are a few examples:
2a. With a level, place the template on the wall with painter’s tape for easy removal.
3a. Using the template’s nail hole markers, take a picture nail and hammer in slightly to mark each picture’s placement.
4a. Remove template, and hang pictures using your marked nail holes! That’s it!
If you’d like to create your own template, you can do so using your own frames:
1b. Take a large piece of butcher or brown paper (you know, the kind they made signs out of for the football team in high school!)-you can find this paper at Sam’s Club or teacher’s supply stores.
2b. Place your frames on the paper creating a desired layout-this may take several tries-have fun!
3b. Outline your frames with a pencil and mark a centered nail hole.
4b. Follow steps 3a-4a and you’ve got yourself a well-organized picture wall!
Ahh…Billy Joel is still bring’n it home!
