Wall Collage

Previously, I was talking about my “cannot-make-it” furniture from Ikea, and my photo wall collage project.  Just to give everybody an update, my photo wall collage is finally ready!

We never imagined that it would involve so much work, but this is certainly 1 project that we are looking back at with pride…as we had to do everything from scratch.

First up was to determine the size of the final product. We used newspapers and up with a satisfactory dimension. From there, we could work out how many frames and what size frames to buy.

After making sure that the colour of the frames and photos suited the theme of the house, we had to position the photos on a big floor area to picture the layout of all the photos. I even stood on top of a stool, to look at the frames from a higher position, to make sure that I liked what I saw.

In preparation to mount the frames, my wife bought mahjong paper, and we cut out the shapes of each photo frame. We then proceeded to paste the mahjong paper onto our walls.

This was the original formation that we decided on:

However, our Interior Decorator came in, and discouraged us against this rectangular formation. This was also one of my concerns, as I did not want it to end up looking too “rigid”.

Here is a look that I wanted to avoid, as I glanced through numerous photos on the internet.

This wall did not “sit well” with me. Somehow the spacing looks a bit off, and the “squarish” invisible frame surrounding the whole collage makes it stick out like a sore thumb.

Well, my I.D (Interior Decorator) came, and with a few quick moves. she moved the frames into a new formation, that resembled a refined outline of the island of Singapore (It’s not exactly alike, but a shadow of the outline)

Btw, Just in case you are wondering, I printed out the photos using my Canon Selphy Photo Printer and for 5R photos, I  printed them at the Harvey Norman Self-Photo Kiosk.  I don’t really like to print at those mass printing shops, as they don’t really do any quality control, and you can adjust your photo’s brightness, if you are not satisfied with your results. Photo conversion to Black and White was done by Picasa.

We pasted up a “mock-up” of the frames on the wall, and we let  the formation “sit” in our minds for a few days, so that we were comfortable with what we saw.

After much deliberation, we got the contractor to come and put up the frames. The frames are bought from Ikea, as they are competitively priced.

And here is a picture of the completed wall:

It’s not perfect, but we are pretty satisfied with the more “human” touch that it brings to the house. Let me know what you guys think yah?

Overall, even with the “mock-up”, we still had to move a few frames around, as the collage does look different when  the frames are mounted. Thanks once again everyone for your previous comments on the photo selection, and also to Joanne for coming down to the house, and helping us with the measurement issues.