The Evolution of My Living Room

A few weeks ago I told you all about my current obsession – Aerial Beach Photography for my LR walls. Well, literally the next day One Kings Lane had a Grey Malin sale and to say I was excited would have been a huge understatement. I immediately selected a print and added it to my cart and then patiently waited 2 weeks until it arrived. While I was waiting I did some research on framing. I wanted  a floating look, with super high shine and started reading about the different methods available. I decided to use Laumont Photographics after reading their reviews and speaking with a sales person there.  I opted for the “plexi sandwich – A premium mounting material, Plexiglas is a flat and smooth surface, is both archival and durable. The “sandwich” combination of front and back mounting acquires the look of  frameless “floating” presentation for your photographic prints. Face-in mounting is expertly done in the Diasec-style silicone based process, which provides a crystal clear appearance for your presentation. The back is then mounted to plexi and lastly, a backing brace is attached in order to hang the piece for display. Available in AR anti-scratch, clear, matte, UV (OP-3) and non-glare surface types.” The framing took about 10 days and I am thrilled with the results.

This is a side view of the piece – you can see the plexi is about 1/4″ thick and then there’s a wood mounting bracket attached to the back of the piece which mounts to a bracket on my wall.

And now that the art is up on the wall I’m ready to reveal my new living room. But first here’s a look back at what it looked liked when we moved in 5 1/2 years ago before kids. (Ollie was such a small pup)…

Here’s what our living room looked like 5 years & 2 kids later….

And here’s what it looks like now…

I was tired of the browns and blues so to the shock of my husband I decided to go with greys & purples. But now that it’s all come together I think he actually likes it! If this wasn’t a rental apartment I would definitely have installed crown molding and probably changed out the parquet floors, and installed some more ceiling lights and….oh I could just go on and on…

Living Room Art

I am in desperate need of art for my living room wall behind my sofa. Ideally I would love to find a piece that is 40 x 60 that doesn’t cost a small fortune. I have been an admirer of Massimo Vitali’s work for some time. He is an Italian photographer who shoots these incredible crowd scenes and I am particularly fond of his beach shots.

His prices, however, are astronomical and not even close to being in my budget. So I started looking around to see if there were other artists who took similar photos that would be better suited for me. I stumbled upon Christian Chaize on the site 20×200.com (which has since been shut down) and started liking it even more than Vitali’s work! It appears as though Chaize is shooting from a higher vantage point looking down and I LOVE the color of all the beach umbrellas that he is able to capture.

A few weeks ago in New York City, while at the Affordable Art Fair, and I was introduced to another aerial beach photographer Gray Malin.  And now I can’t stop dreaming about how these pieces would look in my living room! They just make me so happy to look at!

Where do YOU source art?