Forget The Mats, Make It Work

Those Buffalo-inspired prints I bought over the weekend? I’m so in love with them. More and more each day, actually. They capture that Buffalo-spirit that somehow everyone from the city can relate to (no matter where they live today), portray lovely architecture, and even complement my paint palette.

That’s right, they’re hung!

Although, now that all’s said and done, I messed up a little bit; turns out I picked out 1870 and Mark Twain in the wrong size. I had wanted to use the mats that are included with the IKEA RIBBA frames, but between waking up and perusing the boutique in Buffalo, I had somehow forgotten to note the specs. I had believed 16×20 would have worked, but, no.

Anyways, I didn’t notice this until after I had unfurled the posters, completely disassembled the IKEA frames (with those annoying little metal clips that nearly destroyed my first-ever-manicure, which I had been treated to just a day before), and put the print into place. I tried to make it work (credit: Tim Gunn) with the mat anyways, just to see how it’d work with the 1870 print. Unfortunately, the whole top and sides ended up being sacrificed, hidden behind the mat, and the title text at the bottom ended up way too close to the bottom. Badness. Bad all around (literally). I didn’t even remember to take a photo of it, I was so distressed.

Now what? Lose the mat? I knew I could get new mats made for <$10 (and perhaps $40% off with a strategically placed craft store coupon) but for free, I could try without and rely on a neutral background to serve as a less-dimentional border. You know the paper spec sheet that comes laid inside each IKEA frame? I flipped it over and let it serve a new purpose.

And it worked. The color of the paper was actually a nice complement to the stark white frame and stark white artwork paper. It’s a little bit more gray/tan than traditional plain white, although it’s definitely not noticeably either and by itself, looks totally white. Why are there so many different shade of white?

Then came a bigger issue. Where to display? Like I said in the last post, one was going above the mantle in the living room. I was pretty much decided that the 1870 print (which is on the left in the photo below) would find it’s home there, but was still considering adding the second one up there as well. The frames would be symmetrical, the art, a series. But once I did some experimenting, I decided it was a little too much to have both big frames hung there, partially (mostly) because the Crate & Barrel chandelier (which I wrote about hanging over here) made it feel like there was too much hanging in the area. They were competing for attention in my little living room. Check out how good those frames look without mats though? Nice.

Although truthfully, I didn’t think the vertically hung frame was proportionate enough to hold it’s own on the mantle wall. My solution was to keep the 1870 frame off center, and hang a small wreath on the other side. Just a wreath I had layin’ around… I’m pretty sure I found it in my grandma’s attic once, but believe my mom or dad had made it themselves out of grape vines. Easy. FYI – the photo makes the stuff look shifted to the left, but I swear it’s all totally centered and nicely balanced in real life.

When the Mark Twain print didn’t make the cut for the living room, I tried out other locations in the house; at the top of the stairs where you’d see it immediately when you turned up the landing…

…and on another wall in the upstairs hallway where I already had some photography hanging (a shell in a shallow puddle… wait, did I say my house wasn’t beachy-themed? I’m surprising myself as I expose more and more. Oh shoot! I just notice there’s a framed starfish photo in the above picture too!)

Neither upstairs spots worked quite as well as the stairwell itself.

So that’s where it ended up. Not only do I get to see and appreciate it each trip up and down the stairs, but I also like the new addition to this wall where nothing was before. And it got me thinking about making a small mural of other frames on this wall between the stairwell windows. I still need to give more consideration on what to include. Just add it to the to-do list, ok?

By the way – these frames? I received them from my sister for Christmas. One of them was fitted with glass, the other, plexiglass. Interesting. Did they transition right around the holidays?