Maybe you’ve got a fridge door plastered with your kids’ artworks? Maybe you have piles and piles of your kids’ paintings in a box in the garage? Or perhaps you have your children’s drawings laying about in a whole range of spots and you get a bit flustered at the very mention of kids’ artworks. Well, I want to share an idea with you! My children are addicted to painting - like me. They create numerous masterpieces each day so I have had to come up with a few solutions to the problem. In this post I will share how I created an art display wall for the very best of their works. And coming soon will be another post about how to store all those extra paintings.
In our household, I love to encourage creativity and any artistic pursuit really. So, I am not the sort to easily throw my children's’ artworks out. Instead I try my hardest to give their artworks my attention and to discuss them with my kids. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a bottomless pit of time to do this. I just try to, and consider that OK. My favourite tip for talking to your child about their artwork is to ask them “tell me about your painting,” rather than asking “what is it?” because really that implies that they haven’t done a good job. But back onto the primary topic…
How we made our Art Display Wall
Here I'll give you instructions for how to recreate my own kids' art display wall that I built with a touch of help from my hubby. It didn’t take much time and it’s super simple both aesthetically and in terms of skills. The tools you need are also fairly basic.
Decide:
Where are you going to put your display? Our display wall is right next to our kitchen as that is the heart of our home and where we host friends and family, who love to see the latest creations. Once you have decided this, you will need to consider how long you want the timber pieces and you will also need to suss out the type of wall. If it is a brick wall, you can use a drill and a special masonry screw. If it is a plasterboard wall, you’ll need to check the wall for studs by tapping the wall or by using a stud finder. Hubby tells me that I’m the best stud finder in town, but I beg to differ. You can use regular screws on plasterboard walls but are best to screw into the studs for a sturdy result.
What you need:
- 2 timber panels from a hardware store (ask the store staff to cut them to length)
- Medium roughness sandpaper
- Drill
- 4 cabinet door knobs with appropriate screws
- water-based semi-gloss paint to match your skirtings
- paint brush
- screwdriver
- countersink drill bit
- masonry screws if you have a brick wall
- long screws if you have a plasterboard wall
- drop cloth or plastic sheet
- pencil
- rubber
- ruler
- string
- timber putty
How to make it:
- Sand down the cut edges of the timber. Dust them off so there is no dust left.
- Prop the timber up on something. You can use two dining chairs but make sure you use a thick drop cloth over the chairs to protect them.
- Get your paint ready by shaking it up before opening and stirring it well. Then paint one layer of paint on one side of the timber and the edges too. Wait for it to dry. Repeat for as many layers as you feel you need. Be careful to keep your brush strokes nice and smooth. And be wary of drips that might form on the edges of the timber. Let the painted timber dry really well – this may take a day or two.
- With a pencil, mark where you want your doorknobs to go. Get your drill and drill a hole through each mark. Make sure that your drill bit is a little thinner than the screw you will be using.
- Use the countersink drill bit to drill back into these holes on the back surface of the timber panels. This will make a little groove for the knob screws to sit in. This means that the screws will not scratch your wall and that the timber panels will sit flush to the wall.
- Fit your door knobs onto the timber.
- Now you need to work out where your panels will go on your wall. Centre the whole display at eye level which is around 1.65m. I left 450mm between the centre of my top panel and bottom panel, leaving room for A3 artworks to hang in portrait orientation. Mark this out on your wall using a pencil.
- Now you will need to locate where you will fix the panels to your wall (taking into consideration if you have a brick or plasterboard wall and where the studs are) and mark that on both your panels. With the timber flat use the drill and countersink drill bit to drill two holes per panel, making sure your countersink groove is on the painted side.
- Have a helper hold the panels in place on your wall and use the screws to drill the panels in place. Dust it off and use putty to fill the holes.
- When the putty is dry, paint over the holes.
- Now you can get your string, tie it from one knob to the other, find some pegs and hang the latest creations!
- Post a picture of your end product on Instagram and tag me @ros,gervay.creative
I can’t wait to see what you create!
Ros
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