Our holiday gift to one another
We’ve been searching for art for our dining room for a few years, but we’ve struggled to find anything that suits our tastes. And our dining room looks so sad and plain (I apologize for the nasty photo taken with flash).
We knew we wanted three pieces, and possibly a theme that tied together, but we couldn’t find nature scenes that weren’t cheesy or graphic prints that were “us.”
A few weeks ago, I saw some simple graphic prints in the art shop across my office and fell in love. The problem? One print was about $150 each (with frame), and that was after the 50% off discount! I snapped a photo and sent it to Steven, to show him what I had in mind.
And he suggested we buy canvases and do it ourselves! Yes, I was skeptical*. BUT, we bought the canvases this weekend, and Steven painted them on Sunday! And voila! We now have art! We are counting this as our holiday gift to each other, and I couldn’t be happier to finally have something hanging in our dining room. I think they turned out great! (And guess what? Steven used our house paint to paint them! So the colors definitely tie together!)
Do you have art hanging in your home? How did you choose it? Did it take you a long time to find the “perfect” piece(s)?
*Due to my lack of artistic talent, not his.
Themocracy
Wow, once again, Steven proves himself quite the artist and the handyman. It looks great!
We have a couple pieces of “art” in our apartment (like, actual prints instead of Target purchases), but nothing like that!
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I love the idea you guys made art for your home. It looks great. When I moved into my first condo, I had 15 foot ceilings and huge, blank walls. I bought a huge canvas and lots of paint and went to work. That was 6 years ago and I still have that art on the wall today, even though we’re in a different place.
When I moved into that condo, I made a pact with myself. It was time to start cycling out the framed posters and replacing them with real art. Every year, I vowed to buy one piece of art. I’ve gone to galleries on Cape Cod, purchased art from travels abroad, picked up pieces at art events in Chicago and even gone online to Etsy (GREAT place to buy reasonable art!). Slowly, but surely, I’m (and now we’re) adding some really nice pieces to our walls. It’s a slow process, but most people take a lifetime to collect art, so why shouldn’t we?!?
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That looks awesome – my sister did the same thing in her living room based on some art she saw somewhere else. It’s such a great idea!
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They look really nice, and this is almost exactly what I do too. Most of our art is self made (ok, well me made) because it’s so much cheaper that way. Some are painted canvases and some are photo prints. We do have one real piece of art I couldn’t resist buying a few months ago. It’s a hand made print of the ‘communist party’ where former communist leaders are decked with party hats and solo cups. it was love at first sight. http://www.threadless.com/product/383/The_Communist_Party#zoom
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Wow!!! I would have been way too intimidated to do art work myself, I think. I absolutely love the artwork you guys did. It looks *awesome*!!!
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Wow that looks great! Homemade stuff like that is always so fun! I might do something like this in my kitchen or office. It’s tough to find stuff I like in my price range. Art is always so expensive!
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Way to get creative and be economical! Looks great. 🙂
I have this one wall above my TV that I am desperate for art for but I can’t make up my mind. I think I might have to go the same route as you and make my own.
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Hey Kim! Thanks for your comment on my blog, I’m excited to find yours!
Your paintings look so wonderful, Steven is quite an artist 🙂
Have a wonderful Christmas!
Wow, looks great! I’m impressed by Stephen’s initiative.
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All the art in our house was created by someone in our family, or little pieces from art fairs. I live that you guys did it, means so much more!!! Happy Holidays!!
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What a great idea– very impressive!
My mom paints, so we have a lot of her stuff hanging in our house, plus a few pieces we’ve picked up here and there. Like you, the dining room is kind of our “decorating final frontier”…every other room in the house looks good, but for some reason, we can’t seem to find the right pieces for this room. We don’t use it very often, so it hasn’t mattered, but I’d still like to work on making it more complete.
I know what you mean though– it’s hard to find affordable art that isn’t just horribly cheesy.
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yay! that is so cool!!!! you guys did a fabulous job. btw totally jealous of your dining room– very put together, love teh table/chairs. we uhhh… don’t have any. lol.
i am actually a big fan of open/blank space, esp white walls. but we have a few very large cool hanging scroll-print type things elliot got in china (his sister in law is from there). i also have a few collage-posters i have made over teh years (actually i have tons, but i only hang a few here and there selectively).
merry christmas eve!!!!!
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Looks great!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
What a great idea, and wonderful result!
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Great art, I love it!
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I love what you guys did! Very contemporary and cool! My sister is a photographer for fun and she’s traveled all over the world. For gifts, I usually ask her to enlarge and frame some of her photos for me. We’ve got ’em in our living room, office, and bathroom. I like art work with a personal touch. The fact that you did the canvases yourself is very cool!
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That is so awesome! Will Steven paint art for our house? 🙂 Actually, we don’t have much hanging on the walls now. We did at our previous residence, but now that we’re in a rental (with lath and plaster walls, no less) I’m afraid to put holes all over the place.
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BRILLIANT! They look amazing, and what a great idea to use colors you already had. I am impressed.
I’m more of a photography kinda girl so I have some of my favorite NYC pictures in my living room. Some I took with my DSLR and some I bought. I have a blank wall in my bedroom that I’m reserving for just the right photos.
Wow those look great! Merry Christmas! 🙂
Perfect! They came out great!!
I don’t know if you noticed the butterfly photos in the frame in my living room, but that was all photos I took. I was very proud, and happy that I was able to get butterflies that had colors that go with the room. 🙂
ah! I love it. That is so our taste too. We’ve been searching for art forever as well. Hopefully we’ll find a cool piece soon!!
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That looks great ! I like to but when I travel. Last buy was a watercolor from an artist in Maine that I have in my living room and it always reminds me of the good times we had there.
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I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the color of your living room. Your space looks quite modern. Love the artwork, so creative and clever. Merry Christmas Kim.
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Can Steven come help me with some art??? I had this same great idea – I had a picture of some simple art from a magazine – bought some canvasses, brushes, just the right colors and started working on it….
the first try came out looking very similar to a gay pride parade, which is nothing like I was going for. I’m not sure how it went so far off what I was going for…
the next try was very simple-like yours, just a few colors, defined areas, that’s it. It came out looking like a 3rd grade art project. Maybe 2nd.
It was all pathetic.
Then I found an art store nearby that does decorating for companies and they have half off in their warehouse sales and I found two pics that we loved. Got the cheaper framing because I happened to be there on a day when they had some really nice scrap pieces that worked with it.
Voila!!
I just got the framed pieces yesterday and can’t wait to get them hung. 🙂
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Those are amazing! I am in awe of people like you who have artistic talent. Some of my children are artistic and I always wonder – “Where did that come from?”
Your dining room looks great! If only all men could be as creative as your Steven.. lol.
My house has barely any paintings in it but I try not to let it bother me as it isn’t actually my house. It’s my parents and to my dismay I have to live here for another 8 months. I really can’t wait for my own space though as I’m super psyched to decorate it! Not until late August/early September though..
PS. Loved reading your “100 Things”! I found it eery but really cool at the amount of things I related to!
Merry Christmas! And I’m glad you stopped by to comment on my blog. 🙂
Awesome artwork! Our kitchen is painted red but the little eating area connected to the kitchen is yellow on top and red on the bottom (separated by a white wooden edge thing that I can’t think of what it would be called right now lol) and then the bathroom connected to that is yellow so they all tie in together. In the eating area we have a map of part of Germany and then next to that is a picture of Garmish-Partenkirchen (a town in Germany) at night with snow 🙂
Our living room has a painting of this old farmhouse type building covered in snow. I really have no idea what that’s about but it’s pretty. I guess I should ask my dad where it came from (I’m pretty sure we’ve had it since before I was born). Then we also have three paintings of ducks hanging up over the tv in the living room.
When we were little, my mom used to buy us movie posters to hang up in the playroom! I wonder where those are… lol.
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Those look amazing! I love the idea of making your own art and things to hang up!
I like to decorate my walls with pictures.
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You two are so creative!! The art looks fabulous!!!! I did not get the creative gene like the rest of my family has!!!
=^..^=
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What a great idea. It looks perfect!
We have a hard time picking out art for ourselves, and a lot of time I resort to non-art decor just because it is easier.
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Your room looks great! My parents have eight million pieces of art, and I have no clue how they chose them. Some of them are architectural type stuff that my dad likes, others are paintings from a gallery, and yet more are pieces that my dad painted a longggggg time ago. I don’t know how people pick the perfect piece…it’s just whatever you happen to like. 🙂
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I LOVE the art. Steven is so talented!
Those paintings look great! I have several canvases that I purchased on sale at World Market and then a few presents from my family; my theme tends to be black & white for my bedroom and then bright colors (reds, yellows & blues) in my living room to match my red couch. I love how those paintings totally transform your room! Great idea, Steven!
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i am so impressed!! i love those!!
my favorite piece of “homemade” art in my house is a set of photos i took of the eiffel tower – i got one of those long frames that holds 5 pictures in a row, and each slot is a different shot of the eiffel tower that i’d taken from various vantage points around paris (and even from different trips, i think). i love that people ask me where i bought it! 😉
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Wow, I love it! Great job doing it by yourselves– I have some art hanging up, mostly photos, pictures I’ve taken that I’ve blown up, and a few posters I bought online. 🙂