I finally have everything hung in the hallway! I love, love, love the teal color we painted it the last time you visited, and the family beach themed shadow box looks great (even if the stupid hinges still won’t let it close properly and apparently the little flip latch things I could attach myself are a figment of my imagination).

I framed my map that I got on Etsy (I love it, but the weird size meant I had to get a custom mat cut, which was a little annoying) and also picked up one of those word quote canvases from HomeGoods.

So that stuff has been up for a while, and it makes me smile whenever I go in or out of my room. When I was deciding which items went on which wall in the little nook outside my bedroom, my friend was voting to put the map on the wall you’d see when you leave the bathroom, so it would get more views. But then we realized you actually see the hallway when you walk in the front door, and the best angle is the wall across from my bedroom door. So yay!

But I still had an idea to try. I wanted to put something on the wall in between the bathroom and the living room. Like I said, I adore the color, but I figured since it’s so dark, it would be great to break it up a little.

I started with two old pictures of my grandma–one a reprint my sister got me for Christmas, the other an original from the 1930s–and popped them in Ikea frames. I checked out a couple possibilities for where to put them, but nothing was perfect…and then I remembered my idea. But with the buzzer on that wall, it looked really odd. And the buzzer was such an eyesore.

I started exploring ways to cover the buzzer and tie the two framed pictures together. I grabbed a cheap two pack of white 8 x 10 canvases from Michaels, broke it open and…it worked!

The canvas was the right depth to cover up my buzzer, and since it’s flexible, I can just press the button right through it. My original plan was to add a nail to hang it on, but it’s completely secure perched on the edge of the buzzer itself, so I don’t think there’s any point to that. It’s also very easy to take off if I want to be able to see the button, or slide the button for talk & listen. (Usually I take it off, but pressing through the canvas would totally work.)

So it worked, but it was still white and boring. I’d seen this:

From here

on Pinterest and thought it was cute, so I grabbed a couple of my circle punches in different sizes and papers I thought would be a good fit. I grabbed a metallic white, a white dot vellum and several shades of teal & navy and punched out a bunch of circles. Then I tried setting them up on my canvas on the floor. I took pictures so that I could see what it would look like vertical and also in case I did something dumb and blew them all away.

This arrangement looked too busy.

So I removed some and:

Still too busy. But after one more round of removal…just right!

I grabbed a roll of glue dots and attached them one by one, starting with the ones that I could press into the wood frame around the edges. I did use the picture above as a guide for this, because I messed up some of the overlaps. (Pictures are AMAZING for knowing what something should look like. Way back in college, I worked in the bookstore and I would set up displays based on the pictures corporate sent out. I had to do one by hand once because our school name was WAY too long for the planogram they sent—and my boss took a picture and sent it in to be used as a future planogram. I know, it’s like I’m FAMOUS.)

Anyhow.

Here’s what it looks like now:

(I took this picture like 12 times. It just wants to be blurry. I promise I tried.)

And there’s the buzzer.

So much prettier like this, right?

What’s your best trick for hiding ugly stuff?