black & white wall.

i'm the kind of person who will get an idea in my head and not be able to stop with this idea until i have exhausted every possible route i can think of or afford in attempting to create it. one such idea was a wall of black and white photos in black frames arranged together. i've seriously wanted to do this since high school, and it somehow kept getting put on the "someday" list {which is ridiculous seeing as how i've been taking/loving black and white pictures for probably 90% of my life}. so... when we moved the last time, and were in the process of hanging all types of things on the walls, i finally finished it.

the black and white wall in its first incarnation:

it is a fun mix of pictures... from our wedding, trips, our dog, one of a sculpture, and one of my husband hanging upside down off a mountain {rock climbing}. my favorite part is that they are not all truly black and white, but all appear to be. the dog is a black dog against a white carpet, the sculpture is white marble against a neutral, almost-white wall... i think it adds some depth and a little something interesting.

i immediately knew which wall should become the black and white wall in the new townhouse. black and white wall in its second incarnation:
we even added some pictures of our 6 month old little girl and planned for how to expand it if we wanted to add more frames over time. i didn't doubt how happy i was with the wall.

enter a better homes and gardens diy magazine. these things get me in trouble every time! {as featured from a great decor8 feature!}

and i couldn't help it, i fell for those wonderfully summery bright yellow picture frames. immediately, i was picturing my formerly bland and boring black frames spray-painted into a wall of bright,happy, yellowy goodness... especially since the wall the frames hang on is in the kitchen/dining area. i tend to be hesitant with bright statement-making color, but love it in theory. somehow we always end up compromising on something husband and i both like, which usually means lots of neutrals + blue, which gets boring.

then, as she tends to do, i saw a martha idea that just cemented the idea even further. it was a wall of frames for cut-paper silhouettes from her craft encyclopedia:

LOVE THIS. loooooove this. not in red, but in a bright, golden, sunny yellow. love love love. my only hesitation is that i've tried spray-painting picture frames before with tragic results. ironically, i was taking some old handmedown frames and trying to paint them black for use in the original black and white wall. turns out, when you spray paint something in your garage with the door open on a windy day, it is possible for a huge gust of wind to blow the large piece of cardboard you're spraying the frames on upside down right on top of a pile of leaf bits, which will of course stick to the wet paint on them and make a huge mess. and there's just no coming back from that.

step two is finding just the right shade of yellow... would it be wierd to take a kleenex box in to home depot for paint matching? i think i have one that would be perfect. ok confession: i know i have it and i know it would be perfect because i originally bought not for tissues but because it was the perfect shade of golden yellow when i had a fleeting thought of painting one wall of our dining room in the old house yellow.

step three. talking the husband into yet another crazy but-i-could-just-paint-them craft idea. maybe the fact that his favorite color is yellow will win me brownie points?