Mismatched but Orderly

Part of the clean out of the Office/Sewing room for Operation Get Ready for  Baby was to finally get around to re-hanging the art from our newly painted living room. 

One of the things we did want to install was a gallery wall.  Now since I'm Miss Matchy Symmetrical, and H is Mr. Mis-Matched Wonky, we had to come up with a compromise that wouldn't make one of us get a twitch every time they walked down our hall.

Our Solution was to have two colours of mismatched frames (black and oak/gold) within a structured rectangular shape..... 

Hmmm, not sure that will make sense to anyone else.  So let me break it down for you a bit.

We started by laying out the frames on the floor and shuffling them around until we had a layout that seemed balanced but not too "perfect" for H's liking.

We then measured the outside of the floor arrangement and taped pieces of string to the wall in the matching dimensions.  Once we were happy with the position on the wall, we started filling it in from one side to the other.

Filling it in was a lot of eyeball work, but the string helped us keep the outer edges of the frames in line so that as a whole they all seemed one unit.  We then measured the nail positions of each frame and tapped them in.

Once it was all done we just removed the tape to reveal our mismatched orderly gallery wall of images.  The frames show people, places and things we love, such as:

• our wedding invitation
• photo of my paternal grandparents wedding
• photo of H's maternal grandparents
• vintage stamps

• H's mom as a child
• H and my Dad getting ready on our big day
• Vintage postcards of cities we love

Such fun little addition to our hallway, and a fun conversation point for our friends and family. A good compromise for both of our styles, and most importantly... one big step towards re-claiming our office/spare room/sewing room!

An Affair to Remember

You know the old saying that you meet people at work or at weddings?   Well five years ago this week, I first met H....  at the airport!

Yup, I first met my now husband at the Brussels airport, bet you weren't expecting that!   We were both en route to a wedding in Poland (see there is a wedding connection in there!), because his Uncle was marrying my polish friend from Dutch language lessons... 

So it's thanks to these guys:

That I was able to snatch up this guy:

I may have had to run off a red dressed predator that the bride was trying to set him up with (well, H wasn't into the red dress so I guess we ran her off!) to stake my claim.  And, it may have been a bit bizarre going on our first dinner "date" with most of his family hanging our in the cafe next door.  And I may not have been so convinced that giving a workaholic chef who lived an hour and a half away from me a shot was a good idea.... But, luckily for me (well us I guess) H persisted and proved that although he is a workaholic who loves his job, and he will do most anything for me (like move across the country, and then move across the world).

So, for our 2 year wedding anniversary this year I got H (and I) a little reminder of our first "date".

A custom print from TexturedINK on Etsy, that now hangs right outside our bedroom as a daily reminder of our journey together.

For those of you not up in your airport codes: BRU= Brussels International (where we met), and YVR= Vancouver International (where we live now).