As a professional art consultant near Asheville, I get to see an amazing amount of beautiful pieces both old and new. For a long time, my own personal style skewed toward traditional art, but lately I've really started to enjoy the broad range of contemporary work that's available in the western North Carolina region.
I suppose that's why I enjoyed this particular installation so much... the homeowner did an amazing job of taking old pieces and giving them a contemporary flair. It can be tough to marry old and new, but she did a great job of it. It all started with a collection of original Audubon prints which her husband had gifted her for her birthday. She's a big fan of bird-watching, so they were the perfect present.
After consulting with us regarding her options, she purchased a set of identical "stand-off" style Plexiglass frames. You see these in use in a lot of commercial interiors, but it's not as common to see them in decor magazines, so it took a leap of the imagination to come up with the idea.
She had us mount each print in one of the frames, and I really liked the combination.
As I carefully set each piece into its Plexiglass sandwich, Arthur was busy laying out templates on the other side of the room.
Templates are often presented as an "easy" solution for making gallery wall layouts, but in fact they can be tricky if you haven't used them before, because they have to be correct to 1/8 of an inch in order to get the right layout. On the other hand, they really are the best way to preview your arrangement on the wall. We were glad we used them because we ended up expanding the whole layout once we saw it in the room. And once they're in place, templates can very useful when it's time to mount the hanging hardware - or in this case, the hanging cleat.
I have to say, this project wouldn't be DIY-friendly. The cleats allowed for side-to-side adjustment, but the height of each cleat from the floor had to be spot-on in order to make such a perfect grid pattern.
Fortunately our lead installer, Arthur, used to be a cabinet maker in his prior role, so he's got an eye for precision.
We caught the best view of the finished wall in our Instagram video... check it out and give us a follow if you haven't already.
And if you'd like a professional to install your gallery wall (to make it oh-so-neat-and-nice) please get in touch. We're happy to help.
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CONTACT US
9:00 am to 5:00 pm, M-F 828-649-5242 Owner: Arthur Teel 113 Rector Branch Road Marshall, NC 28753 |