I used blu tack to hang a $5 thrift store movie poster in my dorm and when I took it down the oil stains went right through the paper. Anyone found a tape that doesn't destroy cheap posters?
I have this weird empty spot between my cabinets and counter in my apartment near downtown Austin. Last month I spent like $12 on a bunch of washi tape and made these geometric border designs around a few posters I had. Looked okay for about a week but the tape started peeling off near the stove from the heat and grease. Then I found some plain black 8x10 frames at the Dollar Tree for $1.25 each and threw in some old postcards I had laying around. The difference is night and day honestly. The frames give everything a clean finished look and they don't move at all. Plus I can swap out the art whenever I get bored without wrecking the wall. Has anyone else tried combining both approaches like tape around a frame or something?
My daughter came home with a big paper mache sun last Tuesday and it was so lumpy and weird looking I had no clue where to put it. It sat on the kitchen counter for 3 days and I was about to toss it in the trash, but my wife said to just hang it up somewhere. I grabbed a pack of command hooks for $4 and stuck it on the big empty wall in the hallway next to the bathroom. Honestly, the crooked shape and goofy paint job kind of grew on me, and now I added a few of her old drawings around it with washi tape. The whole thing cost me maybe $6 and it fills that wall better than any poster I bought from Target. Anyone else end up liking something your kid made more than you expected?
I keep seeing people in this group post photos of their new gallery walls and the bottom edges are all lined up perfectly with the top of their couch. But then there's a huge gap above. That drives me CRAZY. My living room has a 9 foot ceiling and I made that mistake on my first try. Had to patch 6 holes and start over. The trick is to hang art so the center of the piece lines up with the average person's eye level, which is about 57 to 60 inches from the floor. If you hang it based on where the couch ends, you end up with a weird floating look. Anyone else notice this or am I being too picky about it?
I bought this cool vintage travel poster from a thrift store (like the ones you see in old train stations, but a cheap copy). Picked up a frame from the dollar section. Got home, measured twice, taped the poster in place with washi tape so it wouldn't slide around. Put it up on the wall. Stepped back and it's visibly tilted to the left. I swear I used a level. Took it down, redid it twice, same result. Third try I just eyeballed it and it looks fine now. So much for being precise. Has anyone else had a frame just refuse to hang straight no matter what you do?
So I had this big band poster from a show I went to in Seattle back in 2019. I framed it with a cheap frame from Goodwill and hung it above my couch. Looked great to me. Then my daughter comes home from school one day and goes 'mom, why is the drummer on the ceiling?' I stared at it for like 5 minutes and realized she was right. The whole thing was rotated 180 degrees. I had been looking at it wrong the whole time and never noticed. Has anyone else had a wall art oops moment like that where a kid or friend spotted something obvious?
She just taped pages from a $2 book of Chopin pieces in a grid pattern on her kitchen wall and it looked way fancier than it had any right to - anyone else ever raided a charity shop for random paper to cover a blank spot?
I let my 6 year old go wild with some cheap watercolors on a piece of printer paper, thinking it'd just be fridge art. Ended up sticking it in a $3 frame from Goodwill and hanging it in the hallway, and now three neighbors have asked where I bought the abstract print. Has anyone else accidentally turned kid art into actual wall decor?
I keep seeing people rave about hunting down old frames at Goodwill for their wall galleries. I tried that for 2 months last summer and found nothing but busted corners and ugly gold plastic. Spent $34 on 5 basic black frames at IKEA instead and they look way cleaner together. Not everything has to be a vintage score you know. Sometimes buying new is just easier and still cheap. Has anyone else given up on the thrift store frame hunt?
I was up on a ladder trying to stick up this big poster of a mountain range in my living room, and my neighbor came over to borrow a level. She looked at my wall and said 'you know, you don't have to fill every blank space, right?' At first I was like, what does she know, she's got like 3 framed photos total. But then I looked at my wall and realized I had been trying to cram too much stuff into one spot just because it was empty. She told me she learned that from her mom who always left one wall blank in each room on purpose. I ended up taking down two of my smaller prints and just leaving that one big poster up with some space around it. It actually looks way better now, less cluttered. Has anyone else gotten a decorating tip from someone who wasn't even trying to give advice?
I used to think kids art belonged on the fridge, not the wall, but my 5 year old drew this weird purple dog last week that actually matched my living room color scheme. I grabbed a cheap 11x14 frame from Goodwill for $3 and now I honestly like it more than the $40 print I had up before. Anyone else hang up their kid's stuff just because it fits the room?
I spent a solid 3 hours last Saturday fighting with a single picture frame on my living room wall. Kept using my eye to level it, stepping back, and it still looked off. Turns out my cheap bubble level from the dollar store was busted. Borrowed my neighbor's real level and fixed it in 2 minutes flat. Has anyone else lost time to bad tools for such a simple job?
I was so excited to hang my 5 year old's latest masterpiece in the living room last Tuesday. I grabbed a cheap frame from the dollar store, popped the drawing in, and hung it up with a command strip. Woke up the next morning and the glass had a big crack right across the middle. Turns out the frame was too tight and the cardboard backing was warped from humidity. Has anyone else had frames break like that from cheap materials?
I was complaining about a big empty wall in my hallway and my niece Lily (she is 6 in March) said "Why don't you just draw on it?" I laughed at first but she was dead serious. She showed me her art folder from preschool and I realized the stuff she makes is way more interesting than any cheap poster I could buy at Target. I framed 3 of her drawings in dollar store frames last weekend and now that wall is my favorite spot in the house. Has anyone else used kid art or other personal stuff instead of buying wall decor?
I thought I could just tape my 4 year old's drawings to the living room wall in a fun grid. Ended up spending 6 hours measuring, redoing, and then switching to cheap ikea frames from the Portland store because the tape left sticky marks. The real killer was getting the spacing even between frames - thought it would take 30 minutes max. Has anyone found a good trick for eyeballing spacing without a laser level?
So I had this convo with my sister last week. She said my wall of my 5 year old's drawings looks like a daycare threw up on the wall. But then I see her boring framed leaf print from Target and it has zero personality. My side says the kid's art is free and tells a story, her side says save the walls for stuff that looks intentional. I mean we have 6 pieces up now and the frames cost me like $12 total from the dollar store. But is there a happy medium here? Like a way to display kids art without it looking like a mess? What do you all do in this situation?
My friend Jen said I should just tape up some leftover Christmas wrapping paper on my blank living room wall to save money. I tried it last month and it looked okay for like two days, then the paper started curling at the edges because of humidity. The tape left sticky marks on my paint too, so now I have to repaint that whole section. Has anyone else had bad luck with temporary paper solutions or know a way to make it actually stay?
Bought a pack of magnetic poster hangers from a discount store. The cheap magnets aren't strong enough and two of my prints slid out and hit the floor with corner dings. Has anyone found a budget hanger that actually holds tight?
I had three cheap band posters taped to my wall for like two years. Looked messy. Then I grabbed 5 dollar frames from the Target clearance rack in Portland. Now it looks like an actual gallery wall. Anyone else have a cheap frame trick that worked way better than you expected?
I thought I was being clever using that cute patterned washi tape to stick up a $5 poster from a thrift store in my living room. After two weeks the tape pulled off a chunk of my landlord's beige paint when I tried to swap it out. Anyone else deal with paint damage from cheap mounting tricks on a rental wall?
I always thought kids' drawings were just clutter until my daughter brought home a macaroni and glitter frame from school last Tuesday. She was so proud of the crooked pasta shapes and I finally got why people hang that stuff up. Has anyone else had their mind changed by a specific homemade gift?
I had this messy wall of random prints and kid art that felt chaotic, and a friend said 'it looks like a yard sale puked on your wall' which stung at first. She suggested I pick just three frames and space them evenly, so I swapped in some $2 thrift store frames and threw the rest in a drawer. Has anyone else had a comment like that make you totally rethink your setup?
She said it during a visit last spring and I was a little hurt at first. But she was right, I was just throwing random frames of different sizes up there with no plan. After that I measured out a 3 inch gap between each frame and stuck to black frames only, and now the whole thing looks way more put together for maybe $15 from Goodwill.
I was about to toss a stack of old art but decided to throw 3 of the wildest ones into some $5 frames from Goodwill. Now my kitchen wall looks like a modern art gallery and everyone asks where I got the prints. Has anyone else accidentally made their kid's scribbles look intentional?
I always thought washi tape was just for bullet journals and stuff, not actual walls. But last month I tried making a geometric pattern on my big empty living room wall in Austin using just a $3 roll of tape and a ruler. It actually looked amazing for like a week and then started peeling at the edges though lol. The trick was my friend told me to hit the edges with a tiny bit of hairspray to seal it down, and now it's held for 3 weeks straight. Has anyone else had luck keeping washi tape up long term or is this a losing battle?