A Tale of Two Frames

There is a running joke among Michiganders that we have two seasons: winter and road construction. While the road construction season can be a pain in the neck sometimes, I prefer to think of that second season as garage sale season.

I love garage sales. One person’s junk often ends up as my treasure. I do try to think very critically at a garage sale though, ensuring I have a clear purpose for any item I choose to buy. The last thing I want is to buy something just to put it in my “to donate” pile at home. When I stumbled upon these two frames at a sale last year, I knew exactly how I’d use them. 

These frames are 21 x 21 inch frames made of solid wood. They were priced at $4 a piece, which is a steal in itself. But I did what I always do at garage sales – get my Mister involved. He is the world’s greatest negotiator. Truly, the greatest. I swear he doesn’t pay full price for anything. I don’t go to garage sales without him. Anyway, I whispered to him that I really wanted the frames and we walked out of there with both of them for $5 total. If the frames weren’t so heavy, I would have done a happy dance all the way home. 

My plan was to hang these frames in our master bedroom but they sat in my closet for a year while I debated what color to paint the walls. Now that that life changing decision has been made, I decided it’s time to hang these beauties up.

Originally, I contemplated replacing the matte in both frames. I had two options. One, I could have a local frame shop do it for me. Two, I could buy some matte board and a matte cutter and do it myself. Having it done for me proved to be way over my budget at $55 per frame. And, after weighing the idea of doing it myself, I decided the mattes in the frames really weren’t that bad and went relatively well with my new décor plan. So after all of that contemplating, I decided to leave the mattes alone.

The next decision was what to put in the frames. We’ve been married almost two years and still have zero wedding pictures hanging in our house. I’m not usually a procrastinator but when it comes to decorating, I tend to drag my feet a bit. I went through our engagement and wedding photos and picked one of each for the frames.

The current opening in the frames for a photo is 8 x 8. I learned that not every photo print shop offers 8 x 8 prints, and some of the ones who do charge quite a bit. Walmart came in at $2.84 a piece which I thought was really reasonable. Before I clicked “Order Prints” I checked out the Sam’s Club website and was pleased to find the prints for just $3.10 total and I was able to pick them up the next morning. Even more reasonable!

I pulled the frames apart, laid in my prints, and reassembled them. I knew which wall I wanted to hang them on and I knew I wanted them side by side but I wasn’t exactly sure what height to hang them at or what spacing to use between them. I revisited my own blog post about hanging art and used a couple of those techniques to find my perfect arrangement.

I traced the frames onto some brown mailing paper and then cut them out. I taped them up on the wall and played around with the spacing until I was happy with their location.

Because these frames are so heavy, I drilled my holes and put in some wall anchors first and then added some screws. 

Both prints fit the theme of the room: the first is romantic, the second is comfortable. 

I love how they turned out, and I love even more that they were only $8.10 total.

I plan to put something between them but haven't set my heart on exactly what that something is yet. I'm excited about how our master bedroom is evolving!

What’s your favorite garage sale steal?

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