< house to home: kitchen wall gallery >

A little while (or 5 months!) ago, I wrote a post about wanting to transform our house into a home. First project up was to tackle some of the bare walls in the house... starting with the kitchen. I am happy to say that I completed the project (hooray for progress!) and I wanted to share the finished product with you.

Here was the plan I designed for the long, empty wall behind our kitchen table:
















And here is our finished gallery wall:

I used simple black frames from Hobby Lobby, which were purchased when frames were 50% off - of course! I ordered the white mats from American Frame. I actually ordered them twice. Doh! In my excitement to get the project started, I hastily entered the wrong cut dimensions for the mats. Turns out that when you have a mat for an 11x14 picture cut at exactly 11x14, then your picture edges show. Here's a helpful tip for ya... you have the mat cut .25" shorter on all 4 sides. That means the mat for an 11x14 would actually have an opening of 10.5" x 13.5". Now you know! Because paying for mats TWICE really stinks. =) However, I did just double mat my images since I already had the extra mats.

I used my absolute favorite product to hang the frames and it could not have been easier. I love the 3M picture hanging strips - no holes, baby! Also, no need to straighten crooked pictures. Well, unless you put them up crooked in the first place - that's on you...

I am really tickled with how it turned out. Looking at these pictures of our family as I go throughout my day just makes me happy. So here's to all my friends with bare walls - I double-dog-dare you to hang something. If I can do it, you most certainly can!