Frame of Mind

The other day when I decided to refinish the headboard for our bed, it became a very "If you give a mouse a cookie" situation. "If you give a Cait a bedroom, she will want to rearrange it", and that's kind of how all of this came about.

So once the headboard was off the bed, sanded, stained, and drying in the garage, I was left with a couple of hours on my hands. I decided to play around with the way the furniture was arranged to see if there was a way of making the room feel a little bigger. I switched out our two big dressers and took one smaller one out completely. It made a huge difference.

It feels so much better in there now! We can walk around the bed and not have to skirt a dresser every time. It's difficult to tell, but the bed is really not that close to the bathroom door, either. You can also see a light taupe patch on the wall that we would like to use as a wall color in there. The inspiration train was leaving the station!

The issue that immediately bothered me though was one that had never hit me before moving the bed: The TV on the wall looks so lonely. I decided I wanted to decorate around it, and after a couple of Pinterest searches and chats with Beth, I found a great way of incorporating and disguising it so that it would fit into the rest of the room better. A frame wall!

What sold me on the idea even more was the fact that the frames wrapped around to the smaller wall. We have a tiny area of wall next to our window that I knew would be perfect for the wrap around effect, so I decided this was the way to go.

Something like this is what I was going for.

Unfortunately, frames are expensive. SUPER expensive. Even with discounts, sales, and Michaels coupons, a large frame will run around $10 each, and I was in need of MANY of them. Instead of searching for the best deal at a retail store, I decided to just go to my local Goodwill and see what they had. It was perfect! The largest frames that they had were around 30 in. and were only $7.50 where as the smaller 8x10 frames were only around $1 each. I grabbed a bunch and walked out with 6 for $12. Not too bad, eh?

They did need a little work, though.

First, I peeled off the price tags and gave them each a good rub down just to get rid of any dust. Then, I turned them over and began disassembling them.

 

I had to cut out where the indention was with an exacto knife to get the paper up. This doesn't have to be a perfect cut,exposes the backing. This left me with the back of the picture itself and the little bit of cardboard or foam filler behind it.

From here, I took a flat head screwdriver and carefully bent all of the staples up to get them out of the way. Don't get rid of them completely, though, because you can reuse them to hold your own picture in the frame. They can be seen here.

Then, carefully take out the backing, the picture AND the glass to get it out of the way. Store it somewhere safe for use later. Be sure not to break or throw it away. This leaves you with the frame itself.

Take a spray primer and give it a good coat or two so you can give the paint some adhesion. Then give it a coat with whatever color paint you want. Allowing for drying time, the whole process takes about an hour and a half, so you can do a bunch in batches.

Clean the glass that you took out of each frame and then put in your own art and bend the staples back into place. You're done! So easy (and cheap!), but not cheap looking. When all my frames were up, I was really pleased with the result.

I opted for different colors of frames randomly spaced (because some of the framed art we already had before the project), and I really like the texture that it gives. Having the other squares and rectangles around the TV really helps not make it stand out as much when it's off, leaving the room much cozier than it would have been otherwise. I love the result! Between this and the headboard going on the bed, the room is certainly taking shape.

Does this inspire you to run to a Goodwill for some frame goodness? Let me know in the comments!