This month I've been all about hanging things up. After the two lamps, I also finally hung up my most recent
Small Stakes purchase, a lovely screenprinted Jens Lekman poster.
My first thought was to incorporate it into my dandelion wall with my other two screenprinted posters:
But I was afraid it would make that side too busy, while the area above my corner bench has been so horribly neglected and bare for ages. So I thought this corner might be a better home for it. And since the poster is white with a little bit of black, it contrasts nicely against the turquoise wall. (Anything I place against that wall can't be too colorful itself or it just looks bad; in fact, the way I've decorated my living room in general, there's either white against color or color against white.)
Next dilemna: how to hang it! There's a small bit of wall to the right of the corner that sticks out from the rest, which you would think would lend itself nicely to emphasizing a piece of art. But as with other things I've considered hanging there (like shadow boxes or shelves), the space would feel a bit flat and uncomfortably asymmetrical if I just stuck the poster there (since the bench is such a symmetrical focal point).
The only way to create a nice feeling of balance above the bench, I decided, was to hang the poster right on top of the corner. And tilted! So voila!
Before:
After:
Here's what I used and how I did it:
Tools: nylon string, 2 hooks, 2 wall plugs
plus picture hook and superglue (not pictured here)
I superglued an extra picture hook to the bottom of the poster frame's backing (word: this picture wasn't taken chronologically to step-by-step instructions; hence the nylon string in this photo):
While waiting for that to dry, I drilled two holes for the hooks into the corner of the wall; one slightly higher than where I wanted the bottom of the poster to sit and one higher than where I wanted the top of the poster to float. Basically the distance between the two holes has to be greater than the height of the frame.
Word to your mother: You should always use wall plugs when hanging something heavy. And another very good tip I learned the other day is to drill the hole at a 45-degree angle. Then your hook/nail is almost guaranteed not to slip out of the wall.
The actual hanging part was a bit tricky since I did it on my own (four hands are always better than two!). But I basically just tied the nylon string to the bottom picture hook first and started threading it through the hooks in the wall and the top picture hook in sort of a z-formation. I tightened the string until I had the frame hovering the way I wanted (with the bottom corners resting against the walls), and then tied a few knots at the top hook to keep it in place.
