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I still need to paint the baseboards, but as far as the decorative elements on the large studio wall, they are finally done! I was determined to get all these items done last weekend so I could move on to something else this week (like painting my work tables or giving my desk a makeover), so I spent several days getting it done, and I had a great time doing it.
First, let me remind you what the Friday wall looked like after the day I failed. Eleven of the twelve months of my calendar fell off the wall. I made my TV frame too big. I wanted to do a makeover on the clock, but I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do. And the shelves are giving me problems.
But now everything is done and the wall looks like this. I would probably move the TV up three inches on the wall (if I could, but it depends on the outlet behind the TV). But other than that, the decorative elements on this wall are complete.
The star of the wall is a large print of our landscape design. I can’t even count how many times I’ve walked into this room and stood staring at this beautiful print. I love seeing the plant key and easily finding those plants on the plan. As I was looking at the plan on my computer I found it almost impossible.
Mounting and framing a print of this size is no mean task. I mean, it’s not hard at all, but it’s not quick either. It took several days to complete, but I’m very happy with how it turned out.
Below the TV, I want to add shelves. I originally planned to make mine into shelves, but I found these shelves on clearance at Lowe’s for $12 each, so I opted for the easy way out.
But in the end, I didn’t like how much the narrow shelves showed off the section, so I went back to my original idea and made my own shelves to fit the width of the available space. I think these fit much better and make the area look more balanced. I have another idea for Lowe’s shelves. They appear in another room.
I made these shelves the same way I made the picture ledges for the breakfast room with one difference. On the breakfast room shelves, I used 1-inch lumber (which is actually 3/4-inch thick).
I love how they turned out, but I wanted the studio shelves to be similar to the Lowe’s shelves I bought, and they are made of 1/2-inch material. So before putting the studio shelves together, I planed all the boards through my planer twice to 1/2-inch thickness. But other than that, the rest of the process is the same.
When I decided to put shelves under the TV, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to use them for, but I knew two things. (1) I didn’t want the shelves to be just picture ledges to hold decorative items, and (2) I wanted the shelves to be very colorful.
It’s the studio, and when I think of the colorful things I use in the studio, my mind goes to paint. I have shelves full of latex paint in the sunroom, but in order to fit that paint into the narrow shelves, I have to transfer all that paint into jars. But then the jars don’t hold all the paint, so I’m left with gallon containers that still need to be stored, and then the jars of paint are really only for decorative purposes. It seemed futile.
Then I thought of craft paint. I have a big box full of bottles of craft paint. But they’re all different brands, different sizes, etc. so they’re not really on public display.
And then I took another look at my shelves in the sunroom and the answer became obvious. Spray paint! I love spray paint and when it comes to buying paint, I almost always buy one brand. About 98% of the time, I’m pretty loyal to Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch from Home Depot. (When it comes to metallic paints or specialty paints I venture to other brands.)
Touch cans of Rust-Oleum Painter are all uniform sizes, I have a ton of colors, I use spray paint regularly, and they look pretty lined up on the shelves. At least they do for me! That choice made a lot of sense to me. So I made special shelves to house my spray paint collection, most arranged in rainbow order. And you better believe I took this opportunity to go to Home Depot to buy the colors I needed to fill in the holes in my rainbow assortment of spray paint for my shelves.
And then there’s the TV frame. I had to remake the TV frame not just once, but twice!! I don’t know what my problem is, but I keep getting confused on the measurements. Thank goodness I kept making it too big, so I could cut down what I had.
The TV frame I made for the studio wall is a bit smaller than the others I’ve made. The breakfast room wall is very thick and I think it goes well with the picture frame ledges filled with colorful artwork.
But for the studio wall, not only did I not have room for such a thick, chunky frame, I wanted something much thinner and shorter.
The watch is one I bought on Amazon. You can find it here (affiliate link). The clock originally looked like this…
I’m not looking for a farmhouse style clock. That’s not really my style. But I bought it because I knew I could work with it. I liked the size and the routed Roman numerals. And no, I can’t make it myself. Or maybe I would have, but it would have taken me two days to buy the plywood, cut the perfect circle, and then try my hand at using my router to carve those perfect Roman numerals into the plywood. I probably messed up on the first one at least, which means cutting the circle again and starting over. So it seemed very reasonable to me to pay someone else $45 to cut the perfect circle, route the Roman numerals, and include the actual clock mechanism in the price.
But I don’t want a rustic farmhouse. I want color. So I removed the clock hands, sanded the face of the clock with 150-grit sandpaper, and painted it Rust-Oleum Sun Yellow. Then I topcoated with Rust-Oleum Clear Gloss Spray. I originally planned to paint the routed Roman numerals white, but by the time I got around to it, I liked how subtle the Roman numerals were, so I decided to keep it this way. I painted the clock hands white.
Finally, there is the calendar. Except for one month when the 3M sticky squares failed and fell off the wall, I went to Home Depot and bought command picture hanging strips. I spent about 90 minutes adding strips to hang four pictures for each month, then putting all the months back on the wall. And then they started falling off the wall again.
Ugh, I’m so disappointed. I’ve used Command Picture Hanging Strips many times and I can’t ever remember them failing. I have actual framed pictures in my house with command picture hanging strips, frames, glass and all. The frames are hung with command picture hanging strips on the gallery wall just inside the door to our home gym. The pictures on the entrance wall of our house are hung with command picture hanging strips. I have used these a hundred times and none of them have failed. Also, they didn’t hold these paper calendars mounted on a foam board to the wall. I was confused.
I love picture hanging strips because they are a two-piece system that fits together like Velcro and allows you to remove the picture from the wall. But for some reason I couldn’t stick them. So I went back to Home Depot and bought some t-rex super glue tape to tape the hanging strips to the back of the foam board, and then taped the strips hanging the picture to the wall. And that stuff is so sticky! I don’t see any way these will fall off the wall again. So in the end, one and the finished project had to be done three times. Talk about frustration!
And because they’re falling off the wall, some of them now have corners. You have no idea how hard it is to get this out of my mind and move on. I wanted to order another calendar and repeat the months with the dinging corners, but I had to move on. I’m the only one who always suffers from those corners, I need to stop obsessing over those little things. (The checkmarks are to indicate which months the T-Rex tape is in. I forgot to go back and erase those checkmarks.)
But that’s it! The decorative part of this massive wall is complete. I’m going to move the TV up a bit if possible (again, to see if the outlet will allow the TV to be moved up), and then I need to finish painting the baseboards. But I was on another project in a different part of the room. Slowly but surely, I am checking the final projects off my “to do” list for this room!
Addicted 2 Decorating shares my DIY and decorating journey as I renovate and decorate the 1948 Fixer Upper that my husband, Matt, and I purchased in 2013. Matt has MS and is unable to do physical activity, so I do most of the housework myself. You can learn more about me here.