Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Pottery Barn Lies

Just because their products are classy cool doesn’t mean they’re above telling little white lies, or at least stretching the truth. For example, when they say, “Creating a memory wall just takes a little planning,” they’re leaving out a few important steps. Sure, there’s the planning, but creating a “memory wall” (AKA a photo collage with frames) involves SO much more than that, as I found out the hard way.

Here's how it went down:

Step 1: Find the photos, gather the frames and fill the frames with the photos. Then it's time to arrange those frames. I put mine out in an area of my living room floor that was the same size as my wall space.



Step 2: Trace each frame on white paper, cut out each outline and mark where each nail will go on the paper.


Step 3: Now that your paper frames are ready, it’s time to arrange them on the wall using painter’s tape and a laser level, following the frame pattern you’ve set up on the floor.


Step 4: Following the nail spots you marked on each piece of paper, begin putting small nails in the wall. These will hold your frames when the time comes to hang those beauties.


Step 5: When each nail is in place, remove the paper and hang those frames, as Cor is doing here.


Step 6: At last, after a looong day of work, you have yourself a memory wall. Whew! What a relief. And what a fun addition to our home.


Trust me, when all is said and done it’s more than just “a little planning,” despite what PB may say on the matter.

BUT…

This is not to say that it’s not worth it. Sure, I spent most of my day off working on this project, but I love the way it turned out. If you want more on this look, check out this post on the subject by my creative pal, Wendy.

And take a look at this how-to video by Pottery Barn, keeping in mind they aren’t 100% accurate with their description of the work involved, and I even took some serious shortcuts, as you’ll see when you watch this little flick. Enjoy!

10 comments:

Jennifer said...

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO how pretty! I love this look. I've been thinking about doing this for a while. I've even been collecting frames!! Awesome project!

Flagstaff said...

I wish I could have given you this advice before you started: 3M tabs. I spent the extra money on the removable 3M wall-mounting tabs for my photo collage wall and it was totally worth it. It was basically like scrapbooking on my wall. I think the whole thing took less than 30 minutes - and it hasn't fallen down yet. Hopefully this will save someone else some time.

My photo wall

Unknown said...

That is GORGEOUS!!!!
So it took a whole day, but how many FAB days of enjoying are you going to get out of that bad boy?
So cool!!!

B-

Nancy @ Live love laugh said...

I did a smaller version of the Pottery barn wall and, yeah, it took me all day. In fact, we just painted and now I have to try to put them all back! I was hoping my husband would have left the holes, but no, he dutifully used spackle!I mentioned you on my blog today about the wall. I am a newbie, so ...don't expect anything too amazing. I do love your wall!
~Nancy

Nicole said...

It was worth all the hard work. The wall looks really really nice. Great Job

wendy smedley said...

Yeah!! you did it- I am sure it looks amazing in person
I am so proud of you, now I need to get mine done

Brandy J. said...

You are so funny...I love the title of this blog! Your wall of photos looks great and thanks for your sweet text message this morning!

Michelle said...

Hard work, but worth it. I did this on both sides of a very long hallway in our house. It took a day and a half to hang the pics, plus the time to find, size and frame all the pics before that. But I love my gallery walls and it was so worth the time.

**Barbi** said...

It was a lot of hard work but it looks FAB! Thanks for the great idea!

natalie said...

Perhaps an "easier" solution...I'm not sure. I was snuggling with my daughter, looking at her mural on her wall (my husband did it...I know nothing). What if you didn't cut out the shapes for the frames, but put down the white paper (perhaps cheap wrapping paper or bulletin board paper) and arranged your frames on it as you like. Trace around the frames, noting on the paper here nails should be, number each frame. Then hang the entire white paper up on the wall, nail holes through the paper, pull the paper off (nails would remain in the wall), and then hang your photos! You could slowly pull the paper off as you hang a few picture, pull it off a little more, hang more pictures, etc. Just an idea.