Hey there all! Hope you had a lovely weekend! Hope those of you in the NYC area are stocked up – please be safe over the next few days!
Real quick, I wanted to remind you that the eBook sale finishes up tonight – it’s your last chance to get the 76 eBooks I told you about here. Baking, crafting, DIY, photography – it’s all covered in the books and it’s an incredible deal for less than $35! You can order yours here – I believe the sale ends at midnight tonight (EST).
OK, onto my latest DIY! So this is another one of those little projects I’ve had on my mental list forever, and this no-spend month is as good a time as any to get it done. Seriously, I want to go shopping SO bad. But this has been a GREAT month of getting lots of projects done and I will power through. :)
Back when I was finishing up our family room reno I needed some art for a wall and did a very quick piece of my own using a canvas I had picked up for another project. It turned out OK but it was a little dark and moody for the family room. The colors went gray instead of blue so I didn’t love it there.
I was changing things around in the master so I ended up hanging it there – and quite liked it. I don’t know if it will stay forever but for free art it will stick around for awhile:
A couple months ago I was finishing up small projects in that room and went ahead and framed it out with basic wood lattice trim from the hardware store:
I didn’t miter the corners or anything – they just butt up against each other. I quite loved the natural wood with the gray painting too:
I’ve been wanting to do the same with the painting I did years ago that now hangs in our foyer:
I just knew it would look more professional and finished off with a little edge to it. Problem was, I’m not spending on DIY this month and I didn't have enough of that lattice stuff. So I searched through the wood pile in the garage and came up with a solution. Cause I’m a hoarder crafty like that. :)
Remember the underlayment I used to do the inexpensive wood treatment over our fireplace?:
Well when I had them cut it down at the store I kept the scraps. It’s really hard for me to give up stuff I know I can use later. And that I did:
I had a couple pieces that were a little over two inches in length so I sanded down the rough edges, then gave them a coat of black paint on the front and back:
This stuff takes paint really well so I never have to prime first.
Since it’s so thin I was able to avoid the garage and just cut with my miter box and handsaw:
Old school baby!
I used my nail gun to secure them to the side of the canvas:
And I couldn’t believe what a difference it made! It really makes it pop!:
The thickness is just perfect – even better than the lattice stuff. It’s a lot more substantial:
You can see here how I didn’t miter the ends – I just boxed it out:
The edges of the underlayment stuff weren’t great but after it was painted, you can’t even tell. I really really love it! I love touches of black and now this all ties in together nicely with the stairs and the bench underneath:
Not bad for FREE. You can see how I transformed this old canvas into our personal art (I did it with the Bub) here. It’s something I treasure and I’m glad it has even more of a presence now:
If you don’t have scrap laying around the lattice is about $4 for eight feet – for less than ten bucks you could give a canvas some oompf. :) And if you have a big piece of art that underlayment is only $15 for an eight by ten sheet – you could have it cut to whatever size you need.
I did the same look with the giant IKEA map in the basement as well and it really finishes it off nicely:
