Summertime DIY: Wall O' Plates

Part 2 of my Summertime DIY series is comin' at ya!

 

After my success with the framed tea towels, I got brave enough to tackle another problem area in my house: the dining room. I inherited a beautiful antique sideboard from my grandmother but couldn't figure out how to decorate the huge empty space above it. Thanks to our high ceilings, it needed a massive art piece that would still blend in with the rest of the room. Inspiration hit while perusing Pinterest (aka the DIYers crack) when I saw a display of adorable, sculptural white plates. (You can coordinate a plate display in any color, but white worked best for my room.)

My first step was finding plates. My grandmother gave me the large one in the middle, and I culled the rest from Target for about $4 each. Then I applied these ingenious, invisible adhesive plate hangers to the backs of the plates, since I didn't want tacky wire plate hangers visible. I also secured the plate hangers with duct tape for extra insurance, and so far nothings has budged. Then came the most intimidating part: assembling the display. I didn't want to hang the plates willy nilly and end up with my wall looking like Swiss cheese, so I traced the plates on newspaper, stuck them to the wall with painters tape, and played around with the shape until I settled on this one.  This part took the most time, but hanging the plates was a snap since I knew exactly where to place the nails. While this project took a ton of planning and prep work before the actual execution, the final product and ease of assembly made everything worth it. The plates bring so much light into the dining room.

Stay tuned for Part 3 on Summertime DIY later this week!