Wall Mounting
Save Space with Wall Mounting
Wall mounting is a popular trend right now. For people living in small spaces such as apartments, condominiums, and small houses, wall mounting home decor is a practical and space-saving solution. It allows them to show off their house number sign right alongside their TV. For those who haven't got very much decor to begin with, wall mounting can give the impression of a fuller space and a 'lived-in' feel. For those who have invested in plasma or LCD flat-screen televisions, surround-sound systems, or projectors, there's no better aesthetic choice.
Wall mounting appliances as well as art, house number signs, and decorative objects has been a common method of interior decorating since the late 1970s. It's entirely possible to take this trend to an extreme (nobody really needs to have shag carpeting on their walls or ceiling), but the general purpose is to keep your floor free of clutter and make your life a little more convenient.
Preparing to Free Your Floor
If you've decided to wall mount the objects in your main room, there are a few basic supplies you'll need to have on hand before you begin. First, you'll need to measure the appliances you intend to mount on the wall, and get a general idea of how much they weigh. Anything weighing less than half a pound, such as art in lightweight frames or a prized house number sign, doesn't necessarily need to be weighed and measured.
The next step is to find the weight-bearing studs in your walls. You can purchase a cheap stud finder from your local hardware store, or just knock on the walls, listening for a muffled or subdued sound. These studs will be arranged in a pattern along the interior of your walls, so once you've found two or three of them, you should have a good idea how far apart they are. With this knowledge, you can begin to plan the new look of your room.
Once you have all of this information and you've made a plan for your room's new look, you will need to purchase the necessary tools to mount your appliances and decorative accents. You can expect smaller or lighter pieces such as posters and house number signs to already have all the necessary hardware for wall-mounting, but you might need to purchase brackets and shelves for your television, stereo, speakers, and other medium to large appliances.
Design Your Room for Movement and Balance
In designing your room's new layout, be sure not to pile all the appliances or all the decorative accents on one wall, or even on one side of the room. You should strive for a balance between the two. For example, if your house number plaque is typically surrounded by the six posters you own, you'd do well to consider breaking them up and spreading them out around the room a bit m
Let's say, for example, that you have two large paintings, a rectangular house number sign, two smaller posters, a television, a stereo, and a telephone, all of which you plan to mount on the walls of your living room. It would be best, if possible, to put one appliance on each wall rather than putting them all in the same area. This puts less stress on the studs you're using to support these appliances and provides an interesting assortment of shapes of varying depths around your room.
Large pieces, such as the paintings and the television (and the stereo, depending on size), can be used to center a room. Smaller pieces, such as the house number sign, posters, or telephone, can be used to frame or balance out the larger pieces. For example, placing your house sign in the middle of a wall with the television to one side or the other might be distracting or confusing to your guests. Placing the television in the middle of the wall, or angling it in a corner, is much more pleasing to the eye than placing it where your guests will have to sit awkwardly, or where their line of sight might be broken by other distracting architectural elements and decorative accents.
Inside or Out?
If you're trying to convert a garage or shed into a gathering place or apartment, be aware that wall-mounting appliances might be dangerous if the building is very small, not built to support interior weight (such as shelves), or excessively worn by weather damage and time. Appliances should never be mounted out of doors, whereas all kinds of art, especially the house name sign, is safe as long as it's weather-proof.
What if all you really want to hang is art and pieces of home decor, and keep your appliances firmly on the floor where they're safe? That's just fine too. You can give a room a great cozy atmosphere with small and medium-size posters, pictures, your home sign, the fish you caught while camping last year.. whatever you please. As long as you keep the sizes, depths, and subject matter interesting, your guests are sure to appreciate their surroundings.
Wall Mounting
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