Hours to go before the guests arrive for a party, but you have no idea of what decor has to go on your blank walls? Bob Tedeschi gathers some suggestions, from putting together mismatched and unframed family photos to personalising a wall section with batik mounted on a frame.
How can a lazy person with design ignorance and a tight budget fill blank walls tastefully? To find the answer, I asked three people who know how to fill walls on an artist's budget: Fritz Horstman, an interdisciplinary artist based in Bethany, Conn.; Karin Tehve, a professor at Pratt Institute and owner of the design firm KT3D; and Stephen Horner, who owns a lighting-design firm in Brooklyn. For others looking to fill a wall quickly and cheaply, my panelists suggested a few simple but creative touches. It also helps, they said, not to try to copy something out of a design magazine. "Your house is an intimate expression of who you are," Tehve said. "So you want to make it into something that looks wonderful without applying an artificial idea of decor."
If you have only an hour before relatives arrive for a party, Tehve suggested gathering mismatched and unframed family photos. From there, she said, "You need an ordering device so they fit together in some way. It could be as dumb as a piece of coloured tape that aligns the tops or bottoms of the photos." To find the right place, she said, pick a spot on the wall to centre the photos two inches below the centre of your vision. (Keep in mind that the tape might permanently stick after a week.)
Setting up a datum
In design-school terms, this establishes a datum, or a linear element that controls other objects. The datum can be visible or not, and it applies to anything you might attach to a wall. The tape approach is especially good if you lack the money, time or expertise to frame something. If you are leery of marring the photos, as I was, put a layer of magnetic tape on top of the tape and affix small magnets to the backs. Another option is a vinyl frame. They cling to walls without harming surfaces. They're a nice choice for family photos. Of course, this is a challenge for people, like me, whose family photos are stuck in an iPhone. But Tehve said that even smartphone photos can be printed in larger formats for less money than you might expect.
The main consideration is whether a photo on a phone is dense enough to print in a large format.
For a less-expensive nonphoto option, chalkboard paint offers family members and visitors a way to personalise a wall section. Meanwhile, if you have a much bigger space to fill, think fabric, and attach it to a piece of wood trim to create a clean line across the top.
Horstman also suggested building a rectangle frame from two-by-fours, but we opted for the simpler approach and attached an oversize batik to a stained piece of trim with Velcro tape.
If we had calculated cost-per-square-foot-covered, this approach would have been the most efficient and easily the most striking. That is, if it were properly placed on a wall. When it comes to laying out artwork, Horstman said it was important to focus on two elements: rhythm and lighting.
Spatial rhythm
For spatial rhythm, he suggested the photographer's 'rule of thirds', whereby you align two subjects where the frame would divide into thirds. If you have multiple photos, for instance, you might place a cluster at one of those two points, and a smaller cluster at the other.
"That way, from a distance it does something," he said, "but up close you can see these things are together for some reason." I had found cool designs online, where multiple photos were clipped to hanging cables you might find in a museum. The advantage of these systems is that you can change the space without tearing up the wall, but the 'cables,' which come in metal or clear plastic, may not appeal to everyone.
More important, you need several hours to install it and electrical skills or an electrician to help. It was a good choice for me, though, because my room lacked a ceiling-based electrical box for conventional track lighting, which Horstman strongly recommended for its versatility. Horner, meanwhile, advocated dimmers and an approach that includes different types of light on the walls for a "layered" effect. You want people's eyes drawn to your decor, he said, not to a glaring light source.
If new fixtures are not feasible, Horner said 'puck-style' lights, which are battery-powered LED lamps, are useful, especially if they're hidden. I built a shelf in an hour with two narrow planks of wood and fixed lights beneath it with adhesive backing. The process was cheap, and the effect was interesting.
When the tracks and lights were in place and my photos were spray-glued to foam-core board, I sketched out some lines on a piece of paper and put everything up in a half-hour. Beholding the clutter, I was immediately grateful for the clip-on system, and for Horstman's final bit of advice. "If you don't know what you're doing, you might end up doing too much, so practise restraint," he said. "Trust your instincts, but be minimal in it."
How can a lazy person with design ignorance and a tight budget fill blank walls tastefully? To find the answer, I asked three people who know how to fill walls on an artist's budget: Fritz Horstman, an interdisciplinary artist based in Bethany, Conn.; Karin Tehve, a professor at Pratt Institute and owner of the design firm KT3D; and Stephen Horner, who owns a lighting-design firm in Brooklyn. For others looking to fill a wall quickly and cheaply, my panelists suggested a few simple but creative touches. It also helps, they said, not to try to copy something out of a design magazine. "Your house is an intimate expression of who you are," Tehve said. "So you want to make it into something that looks wonderful without applying an artificial idea of decor."
If you have only an hour before relatives arrive for a party, Tehve suggested gathering mismatched and unframed family photos. From there, she said, "You need an ordering device so they fit together in some way. It could be as dumb as a piece of coloured tape that aligns the tops or bottoms of the photos." To find the right place, she said, pick a spot on the wall to centre the photos two inches below the centre of your vision. (Keep in mind that the tape might permanently stick after a week.)
Setting up a datum
In design-school terms, this establishes a datum, or a linear element that controls other objects. The datum can be visible or not, and it applies to anything you might attach to a wall. The tape approach is especially good if you lack the money, time or expertise to frame something. If you are leery of marring the photos, as I was, put a layer of magnetic tape on top of the tape and affix small magnets to the backs. Another option is a vinyl frame. They cling to walls without harming surfaces. They're a nice choice for family photos. Of course, this is a challenge for people, like me, whose family photos are stuck in an iPhone. But Tehve said that even smartphone photos can be printed in larger formats for less money than you might expect.
The main consideration is whether a photo on a phone is dense enough to print in a large format.
For a less-expensive nonphoto option, chalkboard paint offers family members and visitors a way to personalise a wall section. Meanwhile, if you have a much bigger space to fill, think fabric, and attach it to a piece of wood trim to create a clean line across the top.
Horstman also suggested building a rectangle frame from two-by-fours, but we opted for the simpler approach and attached an oversize batik to a stained piece of trim with Velcro tape.
If we had calculated cost-per-square-foot-covered, this approach would have been the most efficient and easily the most striking. That is, if it were properly placed on a wall. When it comes to laying out artwork, Horstman said it was important to focus on two elements: rhythm and lighting.
Spatial rhythm
For spatial rhythm, he suggested the photographer's 'rule of thirds', whereby you align two subjects where the frame would divide into thirds. If you have multiple photos, for instance, you might place a cluster at one of those two points, and a smaller cluster at the other.
"That way, from a distance it does something," he said, "but up close you can see these things are together for some reason." I had found cool designs online, where multiple photos were clipped to hanging cables you might find in a museum. The advantage of these systems is that you can change the space without tearing up the wall, but the 'cables,' which come in metal or clear plastic, may not appeal to everyone.
More important, you need several hours to install it and electrical skills or an electrician to help. It was a good choice for me, though, because my room lacked a ceiling-based electrical box for conventional track lighting, which Horstman strongly recommended for its versatility. Horner, meanwhile, advocated dimmers and an approach that includes different types of light on the walls for a "layered" effect. You want people's eyes drawn to your decor, he said, not to a glaring light source.
If new fixtures are not feasible, Horner said 'puck-style' lights, which are battery-powered LED lamps, are useful, especially if they're hidden. I built a shelf in an hour with two narrow planks of wood and fixed lights beneath it with adhesive backing. The process was cheap, and the effect was interesting.
When the tracks and lights were in place and my photos were spray-glued to foam-core board, I sketched out some lines on a piece of paper and put everything up in a half-hour. Beholding the clutter, I was immediately grateful for the clip-on system, and for Horstman's final bit of advice. "If you don't know what you're doing, you might end up doing too much, so practise restraint," he said. "Trust your instincts, but be minimal in it."