The “dining nook” wall in the kitchen/dining room is HUGE: a 12′x12′ swath of blank wall. And I’m really not sure what to do with it (on the cheap).
what to do, what to do?!
{Like how I x-ed out the junk on the table and counters?! Ha! Obviously we still need paint on the walls and trim, but we’re getting there…!}
The scale is so hard in here…I’ve never had to deal with this before! The ceilings are over 11 feet tall, and the windows are 3′x7′, so whatever I do on the wall can’t look too puny but also can’t compete. Here’s one idea I’ve been mulling over: black background botanicals.
I don’t remember where I first saw these fabulous oversized black botanical prints, but I thought they could look really cool in our space:
aren't they so cool?! (sorry I don't have photo credits - anyone?!)
You can buy them as reproduction educational charts from The Evolution Store for $98 apiece…
lots of botanicals to choose from
They have a big selection, but I’m not so sure I want wall hangings, but rather framed art. Jamie at Furbish sells them in her bricks & mortar and online shop, framed in speckled mirror – LOVE! – but I can’t pony up the $650/pair. 
So then I stumbled across Little Green Notebook’s post on black background botanicals. She found out about these prints of these beauties constructed from hand-cut and applied paper by a Mary Delaney in the mid-1700′s. Oh my word, they are gorgeous!
mrs. delaney's beautiful botanicals
So off to Amazon I went to order a book about her botanicals – I had the (unoriginal) idea to cut the pages out and frame in a big botanical collage a la Lauren of Pure Style Home…
doesn't Lauren have the most amazing style?!
I anxiously awaited the book’s arrival…and then got it…and then was sad. There are only ~6-7 full-page pictures of Mrs. Delaney’s botanicals; the rest of the book was all about her life, with plenty of thumbnail-sized prints…
sadness, only a few pages to use...
It’s a really beautiful and interesting coffee table book, but I returned it since I couldn’t use it for my gallery wall. Boo. So I failed on the artwork front. But all is not lost!
The British Museum allows FREE printing of high-res images of the botanicals! There is a HUGE assortment. I could send them off to a printer, sizing them however I’d like, and then frame them in IKEA Ribba frames. A lot of effort…but would be pretty darn cool.
What do you think?! Should I go that route and have a printer print up some prints and me frame them and wall collage it? Or should I get the educational posters (definitely the least time intensive of the two)? Or something altogether different for that monster wall? I’m really undecided but know I need a big statement!
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m so glad I decided to take a quick break from my day to check out your blog.
First, THANK YOU, wife-of-AF, for informing me about the British Museum. Plenty of ideas have popped into my head.
I don’t know if you remember, but Jerome and I actually have a pair of black botanical prints hanging in the piano room. While I like them a lot, I believe I’d get bored wit h them rather quickly if they were somewhere more prominent. That being said, if you do decide to print them, I’ve had a ton of success with snapfish.com at all sorts of sizes…and you could get them printed on canvas if you wanted to do so. The canvas option would allow you to have them artist wrapped–so you wouldn’t need to frame them. This would be a much less formal look–and given the proximity to your island and kitchen that is probably what you want.
Another option to consider–a triptych. You could also do canvas or large framed prints. The first thing that came to mind for me was inspired by your cow hide rug. You could go through the photos of your civil war trail touring extravaganza and Photoshop your favorite (turning into sepia tone or b&w) and then blow it up so it fills three frames.
Lastly, have you considered texture? If you’re married to the idea of botanical prints, what about frame some substantial pieces of really cool botanic fabric? Or, if you want to be really edgy and unique, what about acquiring some of these and framing them in shadow boxes–hanging a collage of them on the wall.
1) http://cgi.ebay.com/ROMANTIC-Vintage-50s-Needlepoint-Floral-Kelly-Bag-/260653256812?pt=US_CSA_WH_Handbags
2) 4) http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Nettie-Rosenstein-Needlepoint-Floral-Handbag-/300452517120?pt=Vintage_Men_s_Women_s_Accessories
3) http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-1960s-JR-Florida-Floral-needlepoint-handbag-/180551951543?pt=Vintage_Men_s_Women_s_Accessories
4) http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Black-Needlepoint-Roses-Floral-Handbag-Purse-/150483201417?pt=Vintage_Men_s_Women_s_Accessories
After all, why limit your incredible imagination to things that one expects to find on a wall? For that matter, you could also put some really cool vintage looking metal planter on the wall and fill them with dried flowers (note, I didn’t say fake). The dried flowers could be swapped out whenever you like for a new look or a new season.
ERIC – you are killing me with your creativity! I love it! I’m going to look into Snapfish – I had no idea they did art prints and canvas printing! Your framed vintage purse idea is just brilliant. I don’t think AF will let me do that here but I’m totally filing that away in the brain for a future room. I do love the idea of doing something Civil War-y (he’d totally go for that), so I’m going to start brainstorming about that. Thankyouthankyou for your suggestions! And again I ask…when are you starting your blog?!
The tall ceilings are a challenge…..most people ignore it, and it looks like umpa loompas live there. A triptych is a common and very useful tool, especially as Eric describes with expanding a single image across three units. However, consider not just a group but a mosaic. If you take an image that you really like, there are programs for supersizing them online (I think we bought one on ebay for $5 a while ago). You can print it out with a standard desktop printer on 8.5×11 or larger paper, then choose frames that are 8×10 or some other appropriate size, which gives you room to trim down the printed piece of paper and crop off some of the image…..If you use a skinny black frame (or some other color or texture that is common or an opposite to your current choices), then you have the option to hang all of the images in a large grid, so it looks like the wall is a giant trellis and you are peering through it, or you have the option to pick and choose what parts of the image you want to hang (a random grid to hit the best parts of the image on the large wall, or a rigid grid but only hang the units that contain the main focus of the photo…..) I also like doing this with Eric’s canvas idea.
Wait a minute! What was I thinking!
PLATES
Use PLATES
Go to yard sales for a couple of weekends around there……assemble a collection of a color or even of majolica….they don’t all have to match
I was going to write something then I read the first post from Eric and now I have nothing to say! Great ideas. I can’t wait to see what you do!
I love these and think this is fabulous inspiration. Would go great on that big wall. Cannot wait to see the results!
Of course, i’m pretty traditional, but i’m thinking huge mirror. But i do love Eric’s triptych.
OOO i just thought of an ‘option’, and don’t laugh….let me send you a picture…..if i can find it. i took some really cool pictures of cows at the Brooks’ farm in Blue Rapids….can you see where i’m going here?
Moooo! Thanks Mom, you know I love your ‘options’
I had the same thought, mum. Initially I thought the room needed a large mirror. Leila, I was thinking you could hang a really cool federal era mirror like this one
http://www.leonceantiques.com/product_info.php/cPath/24_91/products_id/4434
and get a federal era sideboard like this one
http://www.oneofakindantiques.com/catalog/4717_charak_furniture_federal_inlaid_sideboard_server_1.htm
Then you could either flank the mirror with large scale sepia Civil War related prints (or I had thought hay bales initially), or you could flank it with federal era wall sconces like these http://www.vintagebrasslight.com/Pair-of-Federal-Sconces-p/va1w0088.htm or you could place two federal era lamps at either end of the sideboard like these http://cgi.ebay.com/FEDERAL-SIDE-TABLE-LAMP-NIGHTSTAND-DESK-LIGHT-ANTIQUE-/120601980751?pt=Lamps_US&hash=item1c14702f4f
Even if you don’t love the federal era, I like the idea of a large mirror, a sideboard and two lamps because the lamps will reflect within the mirror AND they will bounce off the ceiling filling the vertical space without “filling” the vertical space.
This sounds beautiful!!! I wish we could fit a sideboard in the nook but it’s plain too small unfortunately… With the table like this, there’s about 1.5′ between the table and the wall, and we can’t move it out further because of the swing of the front door. Gotta love a tiny cottage! But I LOVE the idea of a huge mirror. And the hay bale prints – brill! I need to get hunting!
Is that the Junor’s table?
You could easily blow something like this us–http://cgi.ebay.com/1910s-CANADA-Northern-Alberta-Hay-Meadow-/200511969705?pt=Art_Photo_Images&hash=item2eaf71d9a9
By the way, another thought just occurred to me. You have a ton of great old buildings down around you. You could wake up early one morning when the streets are pretty quite and take some picks of a cute downtown area and blow them up to flank a mirror or make a triptych. IF you toned them sepia or b&w it would look great.
I envy you and all your options.
Hi!! I’m so excited I stumbled on your blog! (I can’t recall how or from where now, you know how the rabbit hole of blogs goes!!) Any way, I’ve spent way too much of my workday reading through your archives. Your reno is gorgeous and I plan to follow along now.
xoxo, cassie
Or combine the mirror/plate idea..I’ve hung goodwill/yard sale mirror finds in a variety of shapes, sizes, and frame finishes over the tub in our master bath.
Just found your blog and am loving your reno. Consider me now addicted. So many great ideas, not sure I have more to add. I love the b&w or sepia art idea, or just finding a few botanicals and taking them to get blown up really large. Can’t wait to see what you choose!
what if you just installed picture rails- like three rows of them and whatever length works for the room. That way you can move things around, start to collect pretty art from all over and when the time comes to have kids you can create a type of gallery wall filled with their art that is chaning all the time.
Just a thought, I was trying to come up with something different from what other people suggested
I say, buy yourself a huge canvas, like 48×60, then paint something yourself, abstract and simple, black and white. Like Miles Redd did in his house, he needed an abstract painting, so he got a huge brush and voila! Of course, I would say abstract painting, but there you have it. You are obviously creative! You can do it!
I would buy a vintage mantle to mount to the wall and find one statement art piece to put above it.
Ok, FR, this is the first thing I thought of when I saw the space. Now… it also just happens to be one of my new obsessions, and there MAY be a few in my etsy shopping cart right now, but…
just this page. The better ones are a few pages in: http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_query=print+on+old+book+pages&search_type=handmade&page=1
I bought this one (not in that frame) and approximately ONE MILLION others…
http://www.etsy.com/listing/55249226/free-shipping-worldwide-hydrangea-with
Okay and so there is a post of my own coming on this topic now:)
Im a big fan of gallery walls so you can’t go wrong there. But I think something really large and horizontal would look pretty amazing too. Kind of depends on how dramatic you want to be.
Hey Leila,
Love the progress on the house…so fun to see! As for dining nook ideas on the cheap, what about painting a large canvas with chalkboard paint and creating a massive chalkboard for you guys? Or finding some old silverware/dishes and displaying them in frames somehow could be cool too. excited to see what you do!
A little late to the suggestion party, BUT…
What if instead of playing to the size of the walls you brought the wall a little more to the size of your liking?
Easier said than done I know, but it may be an option to frame out the wall section you want to decorate with some standard molding with an accent color or even accent wallpaper and then decorate as you wish without concern for the oompa loompa effect.
Just a thought.