A Tribute to Our Parents

Our living room has been devoid of family photographs since we moved in. I have been looking for a way to incorporate some for a while now. Last week, we took advantage of a rainy day to put up some mirrors and shelves. I put some photographs on the shelves but still wanted more. I also felt that the wall with the mirrors was lacking something. Empty wall space + need for photographs = new project for Douglas and Jessica. 🙂 I think that the wall looks much better now. What do you think?

I wanted to use wood frames to coordinate with the wood-framed mirrors on that wall, so I went “shopping” in the basement with that in mind. You might not know the secret of my hoarder-like basement, but I wrote an entire post about it titled My Big, Dirty Secret. It is slowly getting organized, but there is still way too much stuff down there. Last week, I was happy that we had not yet gotten rid of everything, because I was able to find three frames that were exactly what I was looking for. They had been in storage for quite a while and were rather dusty, but that is easy to take care of.

I really liked the pictures in the frames, but the orientation was not correct in all of the frames. I needed to hang two of the frames vertically, and they were all framed horizontally.

Since these pictures did not fit my criteria and there was a dearth of family photos on display, I decided to remove these pictures and replace them with my own. Taking the pictures out proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be. First, I had to rip off the paper backing and pry open the staples that were holding everything in. I do have a staple gun, but I was too lazy to take it out. When I took everything out of the frame, I realized that the pictures were glued to the mat. Who does that? I carefully peeled them off, so that I could reuse the mats. I put my pictures in but left the original pictures behind them. I may decide to put them back someday. I cleaned the glass and then put everything back together.

It was rather difficult to get the glass back in without removing the staples, but I managed to do it. Douglas helped, but he was frustrated after the first one and I had to do the others myself. Then, I carefully bent the staples back into place.

I also had to put hardware on the two frames that I wanted to hang vertically.

Finally, I hung them, while Douglas took unflattering pictures of me.

The pictures that I chose are of our parents, in case you could not figure out why I chose the title I did. The only pictures we have of Douglas’ parents alone together are from their wedding. We chose a sepia tone for the picture we selected.

My parents divorced when I was twenty four and are both remarried…to other people. I would have liked to hang a picture of their wedding, but I did not think that they would appreciate that. I had to come up with another plan. Both of my parents were college athletes, and I decided to honor that aspect of their lives instead. I printed their pictures in black and white. Here is the picture of my mother, the gymnast, on the balance beam.

And my father is pinning an opponent on the wrestling mat.

I ordered the pictures from Shutterfly. Shutterfly gives its users coupons. The more you use their site, the more bargains you receive. It is a great marketing strategy, or at least it has worked on me. I use them frequently and have a lot of pictures stored on their site. Many of the gifts I give come from Shutterfly. Unfortunately, I did not have the patience to wait for a coupon; I wanted those pictures ASAP. The total cost for the pictures without a discount came to $11.97. The total cost for all of the objects on the wall came to $11.97. That is correct. We only paid for the pictures. The mirrors were rescued from the trash.

Even the desk and birdcage that sit under them came off of a curb. My mother gave me the lamp and a friend gave Douglas the pictures. I probably did buy some of the art books that are on the desk, but at least o couple of them came from boxes that people had thrown out.

This was a quick, cheap project, and as I have said before, “That is how I like them. Cheap and easy but still good-looking!”

Happy Homemaking!