In a conversation one day at school, one of my coworkers found out that I was looking for a large window to hang on my wall. She totally shocked me the next day when she brought this to school!!!!! I was absolutely blown away by her generosity!
In case you are in the market for a window, I have since found a BUNCH at Habitat for Humanity. There is also a GREAT door/window store in Lavonia. I mean it's not everyday someone replaces all the windows in their house!
I cleaned it off with my vinegar/water solution and taped off the panes. I gave it a light coat of white gloss spray paint. I wasn't too particular about getting everything covered and perfect. I wanted to keep it kind of rustic.
After it was painted I cleaned the panes with windex and it was ready to be hung. I think the thing that scared me the most about this project (and the reason I've waited since January to do this) is I was unsure how to hang it on the wall. This is a pretty heavy window, and it is going in our bedroom (right above where our dog sleeps). An accident of this falling off the wall would be pretty epic.
I looked around at Home Depot for a hanging solution. I couldn't believe all the choices they had!! I ended up getting a kit that says it holds up to 50lbs (without mentioning whether it needs to be in a stud or not).
I bought it for less than $4 and followed the directions. The window got the hanger part.
The wall got the attachment part. The nails that went into the wall were pretty unique looking.
Although in theory I should have found the stud first and then planned where to hang it from there. I was too afraid that the stud would be off, that the frame wouldn't be centered on the wall, and I would have to scrap the whole thing. I mindlessly put the attachments on the window without checking for a stud. I was absolutely shocked when the first nail found a stud on the first try... talk about luck.
I also wasn't sure how to attach the picture (that I had printed on engineer/architect paper) to the window. The picture is a bit small for the frame but it was as large as they could print it on site. I toyed with the idea of cutting it out and mounting it right to the glass or mounting it to the wall (like I did).
Here's that process:
I centered it on the wall, and attached it with thumb tacks.
They have to be the small thumb tacks that are flush with the wall.
Then I found where to put the anchors on the wall (this actually was done from measuring from the ceiling down to make sure I had an even place to start) and I measured the width of where the hangers were on the window (in others words I basically flew by the seat of my pants). The directions that came with the hangers don't mention how to get this off the wall... so I felt like I had one shot to get it right (plus I'm a semi-perfectionist so I measured like 8 times).
Here it is!
There is so much I love about this picture.
1. It was taken on our honeymoon to the Biltmore Estate. We had our first official date here 2 years before that, so it was just fitting that we honeymooned there.
2. We took this photo on our horse drawn carriage ride which took us behind the house. You can't get back there unless you do one of their excursions. Ironically on our carriage ride it began snowing. The whole day was just perfect.
3. I LOVE how the house is practically centered in the top middle pane. I mean how seriously cool is that??? It is really hard to choose a picture on a 17in computer monitor that is going to get blown up to 25in x36in in real life and figure out where everything is going to fall. It was sheer coincidence.
4. I like that the large carriage (which is actually a huge focal point in the picture) is broken up in 3 panes so it immediately turns the attention to the house.
5. Did I mention that I took this picture almost 5 years ago with a 5MP camera. I couldn't believe the quality of the print when it was blown up so large.
SO we have a view of the Biltmore Estate out our bedroom "window".
From this angle of the picture above it looks like the white boarder around the picture is only shown from the left side of the frame. It is actually balanced (with a white boarder on the right side too), you just can't tell from that angle. I am still brainstorming ideas of how to remedy this, but in all honesty it really doesn't bother me. Here's a view from straight on showing that is is equal on both sides (and it is reflecting the collage from the other wall in the glass which is why the panes look wonky):
No comments :
Post a Comment