Julie's Living Room: TV Wall Art Gallery (After)

We finally got around to finishing up the TV gallery wall in my (Julie) living room.  As a refresher, here's what this wall looked like before:

I cobbled together some art that we had around the apartment, and now the wall looks like this:

Hanging the pictures was fairly easy.  Sarah and I traced each frame onto newspaper, cut out the shapes, and positioned them on the wall using painters tape until we were happy with the layout. 

We stepped back, admired our work, and realized that my apartment looked like the home of a deranged serial killer.  

I then hammered in the nails while the newspaper was still on the wall.  This ensured that the frames would be correctly spaced once we took the newspaper down and got to hanging.

View from dining room

View from couch

I tried to stick to black, gold, and white frames and white mats.  The picture in the bottom left still needs a new mat, which I'll eventually get around to buying.  Has anyone ever painted a mat before? I picked up this print on the street for $15.  I thought it was original art, but later realized it is a Monet poster...lovely.  I really like the frame and print, but hated the mat (it's not easy to see in the picture, but the mat was a marbled beige color).

I decided to paint the mat since it's a bit of an irregular size and I didn't want to spend the money to have a custom mat cut.  Using a knife, I removed the paper backing, being careful not to damage the mat.

I then lifted the interior prongs with a flathead screwdriver, removed the mat, and got to painting.

I used regular latex paint that I had leftover from another project, but you could easily use acrylic or any other white craft paint.  I'm so happy I took the time to do this-- you really can't tell that it's been painted!

I was worried that this many frames would turn our living room into an art gallery, but I'm happy with how the wall turned out, and I do think the frames help ground the massive TV.

Happy Monday! Stay tuned for an exciting announcement later this week!