Prints in the Living Room Update

Do you remember what the living room looked like? I went through this stage where I was trying out no rug in the living room. It felt more expansive since there were no lines breaking up the space. However it felt cold and unfinished. Not too long after this picture was taken I put the rug back.

The art on the walls is my sons. They are several paintings from when he was in summer art school at the Art Institute of Chicago. They were colorful and made by my son so I loved them. I've been ready for a change for awhile but didn't know what to put in their place. I wanted something bigger. The prints are hung too high in relationship to the couch. I have plaster walls and didn't want to move and patch and paint for new screws on the walls. And it had to be pretty inexpensive.

Back in December I found a couple pictures on clearance at Bed Bath and Beyond. I don't even have a picture of them. The frames were black and nice and thick. They were plastic but you couldn't tell until you touched them. They were huge at 41" x 29". The pictures were a poster of the Beatles. I didn't care about the poster. Only about the frames and the price - on clearance for $10.99. I bought 3. But they sat and sat for months. I wanted my son to find some of his black and white photography and enlarge it for the frames. It never happened however much I nagged.

Several weeks ago my son's girlfriend Liz was visiting. I mentioned to her that I had been nagging Forrest about finding some prints so I can finish my project. Liz thought it would be fun and helped him look through his pictures until he found this large piece of the Chicago skyline at sunset taken from a boat he was sailing on. Forrest used Photoshop to cut it into 3 pieces and resized them for printing. We used a gift card to Wolf Camera to have the pictures printed. They turned out spectacular. They weren't the abstract black and white pictures I thought I wanted. They were better. Here they are together so you get a better idea of the print.

I had to glue on some new hangers to hang the pictures portrait instead of landscape. I used d-rings from Home Depot and E6000 glue and some new picture wire. Here they are hanging on the wall. Again with the bad iPhone pictures until I can get a new camera.

 

You might also notice that I put the black slipcover back on the couch instead of the brown one. Here is a picture straight on but with worse night lighting and shadows. I really need a new camera instead of using my son's iPhone. I finally have something the correct scale for the space. Bad pictures notwithstanding, I'm very happy with the way the prints turned out. I spent $33 + tax for the frames, the prints were free with a gift card but would have cost $20 each without, we had 3 sheets of white paper from the art supply store and used some double sided tape to hold the photos in place. I used some d-rings, E6000 glue and picture wire to hang them. So for under $50 I got the large update I had been wanting for several months.