Our Gallery Wall!

Slowly but surely our home is coming together.

We have officially unpacked everything!!  It feels good to not have boxes lying around everywhere.

And you know what else that means??

I have officially caught the DIY decorating bug. I mean, I've had it for a while..but moving to an old, but "new to us" home really lights a fire under me!

I mean..when I think of all the awesome things/updates I could do here...

-paint the "wood paneling" on the cabinents in the kitchen and bathroom
-new faucet for kitchen
-new light fixture for dining room
-paint the front door
-fix up the screened in porch
-paint the wood trim white in the kitchen
-perhaps spiffy up the fireplace

I mean the list goes on and on!

And truth be told, I will probably not make all of those updates since we are just renting it but if we decided to stay here a couple years, I may get adventurous!



 When we picked out this home to rent, I knew that I wanted to designate a wall in our living room for a "gallery wall".  In our previous home, there wasn't any good space to really do it because our living room walls were all windows.  But here, I found the perfect space!

Introducing, our gallery wall:

 

{click the photo to enlarge}

Now, something that I love and hate about our home is this:  The house sits on a VERY shaded lot.  I love this because our air conditioner bill will be less, our home is cool most of the time, and our bedroom doesn't get much direct sunlight (so no getting woken up at 6am!)

But, that means that most of my photos will be darker because I don't like the look that the flash gives... and I kind of don't know what settings to put it on to make it look great..so there.  The photos are a little wonky (is that a word?) but they will do.

As for the materials used: 

-I already had all of the items from before we moved and just brought them together and started re-arranging them to where I thought it looked nice.  

-I bought the big black (I spray painted it white) swirl frame from IKEA for $30.  The brown frames are from HomeGoods a long time ago.  

-I spray painted the J and the two other pink frames with Krylon watermelon spray paint.  LOVE that color!

-The 5 28 10 is our wedding date and I bought the wooden letters from Michaels and painted them yellow. I then hot glued them to a piece of burlap and hot glued that to the back of the frame.

-The vintage keys are from my mom.  No clue where she got them

-The little shelf was free from a friend of mine and the glass "vases" with the holder is from Michaels.  70% off!

-The fleur-des-lis and the cross used to the black. I sprayed them white and they were from Hobby Lobby for around $4 each.

I love the way it turned out.  The only reservation I have is perhaps there needs to be something above or below the fleur-de-lis.  It looks kind of like it's just there. But we'll see if I find some treasure to put there.

Hope you like it!  

Here are some close ups:

 Found the prints on pinterest and printed them off of my computer.

 our wedding date!

 My good friend drew this picture of us and gave it to us on our wedding day!

 Wedding photos

 This is a free printable from eighteen25

See what I mean about lighting?  This picture was taken in the middle of the day but it looks yellow because my curtains were reflecting off the wall.  All the frames are an off white color..not yellow.    We don't have a ceiling light or fan in here, so without turning on the lamp, this room is really dark! Kind of odd, huh?

See the yellow curtains in the corner of the picture? I'll be sharing those soon! And the wall color!

Next project: my mantle! Pictures to come soon!

Have a great day!!

Linking up here and here and here.