DIY: Record frame focus wall

I've always had a pretty nice record collection. I especially love to collect old records from movies and television shows with beautiful cover illustrations. Now that we have our new place, Jeremy and I finally got around to placing our frames on the wall.

I'll admit, at first I was intimidated. But with a little bit of patience, time and some materials you can frame records or any other picture frames in a perfect grid. Here's how!


Materials you'll need:

• level
• wrapping paper (make sure you have enough to cover the space you'll be hanging on)
• a pen to outline the records with
• hammer and nails
• record frames
• tape (I used blue painters tape)

Frame your records, if possible in matching frames. I got these on sale at Michael's craft store.

Using the back-side of the wrapping paper, measure your frames out. Ours was generic cheap stuff from Walmart. I love this stuff because it has 1" grids on the back. Outline the records once you're happy with the placement, one at a time. Measure out and mark a place for each nail. I used a stencil made from the wrapping paper grids so that every nail was in the same exact place.

Using your level, make sure your template is level on the wall. Double check all the outlines to ensure that they are equally level. Once you've found the perfect fit, tape it down.

Nail into the wall where you marked on the paper. If you look closely, you can see the orange dot from my stencil where the nail is. Adjust nails if need be to ensure that all frames are level with one another.

After placing the first nails, test to see how they fit one row at a time. Once you're happy, remove the frames from the wall and gently pull off the paper stencil so not to pull out the nails. Place the frames back up and you're done!

Enjoy your sexy record collection.

A few tips:

• Lay your records out ahead of time, before getting out the paper. Play with different orders and when you think you have the right one, snap a picture and use it for reference when placing them on the wall.
  
• Bring a buddy! Four hands are better than two, especially when trying to level and tape down a giant piece of paper to the wall.

• Do not hang records in direct sunlight. The sun will damage the art and they will fade quickly. Even in indirect sunlight, they'll fade over time. So it's best not to frame someone you might want to keep in mint condition. All of my records are like-new or older.
• Step back every now and again to make sure that you're happy with the placement. We measured the distance of our couch and matched the middle of the frames to the middle of the couch.

• When in doubt, grab the level!! We used ours A LOT!

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I'll make another post about our record collection soon, so stay tuned for more detailed shots of the records on our wall, as well as some of my other favorites. :)

And If good lightning will permit it, I'll share more photos of our fantastic living room soon. I don't get home until after the sun begins to set. Natural sunlight really shows off our stuff the best. :) Stay tuned!!


Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to staring at my sexy record frame wall. Seriously, I'm totally in love with it.

<3 Stephanie