Large-scale art can anchor a room, act as a great conversation-starter, and even make a small space seem bigger, but it's not always affordable. If you're looking for ways to make a big impact on a small budget, get creative and look for found objects that can be repurposed as wall art...
- 1) Jessica and Erik found a huge map of Paris at an estate sale and hung it on their living room wall.
- 2) A photo from Chicago store Salvage One shows how antique film reels can be repurposed as large-scale wall art. The store has a rotating selection of elements that can be repurposed into art.
- 3) Todd and Nicole say that the piece of a Boeing 707 that hangs in their living room definitely attracts attention. "We found it at a Tucson aircraft scrapyard and had it shipped back to SF," they told Apartment Therapy. "After we stripped off the paint to reveal the bare aluminum, we wired it for illumination using inexpensive rope lights."
- 4) Annie hung a piece of weathered plywood on her wall. For more ways to repurpose plywood as wall art, click here.
- 5) In K&R's South African home, flags hung along the wall molding add color and bold, graphic pattern.
Photos: Jessica Engeman, Salvage One, Leslie W, Annie, Liezel Strauss
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Comments (8)
My biggest piece of art is a map they were going to throw away at an old job I had (it was in the office of a guy who quit, and they were finally cleaning out his office months later). Why he had a map from the UT Geography department, I don't know -- I was working for Texas at the time, but in a whole other capacity. But it was free and it's huge and I love it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stegersaurus/2950271165/in/set-72157607977654851/
That's it hanging in my old apartment.
That's beautiful stegersaurus!
The film reels look a bit too imposing and scary (if they fell) but I love the piece of airplane - so unique!
A *BIG* fan of large-scale art. Stegersaurus, you made a major score (and rescued that gorgeous map from oblivion)!
I bought a huge world map (50" x 33") last year, and have always wanted to have it framed, but getting it custom-framed is way too expensive. Any ideas for how to find a cool/inexpensive frame?
@dunklekatze & @mirandabee -- Thank y'all! And yeah, my boss didn't understand why I wanted it: "But it's... a map. An OLD map. And it's huge." I was so nervous to ask for it (I had only been there a couple weeks) but I'm so glad I did.
Nautical charts and old school pull-down maps are cheap (under $50) and fun.
Cool map!...I got one from www.styledevie.com in L.A. when I was looking at the UK bus signs they carry. I was going to use one of the signs as a window shade, but some of the old maps were originally mounted on a spring mechanism!...so it was easy, just mounted the mechanism to the wall and that was it!...map was $475, but it was a super cool old one depicting the airplane routes throughout the world in the 50's...super unique like stregesaurus's so i splurged...