I live in a tiny house. It’s a modest, three-floor living space good enough for a small family. Picture a typical Filipino apartment with an attic and that’s about it. I am not complaining because I love our place. Yes, it is small but my wife and I were able to put our design licks in it.
We have a narrow hall leading to our bedroom to the right and to the open terrace if you go straight. We had the hall wall painted white to make it appear wider but leaving it bare would make it boring, right? Well, certainly we don’t want it to look like a usual Pinoy wall: “Footprints in the Sand” poster, school diplomas, framed pre-fast food diet family photos, and a wooden cutlery set made for a giant.
Enter my man-cave design sensibilities and basic Adobe Photoshop skills. Go to the Internet and search for royalty-free (read: do not mass produce) retro poster sites. Make a layout of a poster; A3 would be a good size. This size will spare you the trouble of custom-sizing the picture frame. Your favorite bookstore will surely have this frame size.
After finishing my layouts, I went to the local print shop and had them digitally printed. I excitedly rushed home for my DIY project having bought the A3 frames earlier. In less than an hour, I’m done framing.
Now, to set the row of frames nicely, place two frames at both ends first using those nifty 3M re-attachable hooks. This step will allow you to approximate the distribution of the rest of the frames in between with equal gaps between each frame.
My initial hall wall posters roll call: 2-Tone Records “1980 Margate concert”, Depeche Mode’s “A Broken Frame”, Robert Zemeckis’ “Back to the Future”, Stanley Kubrick’s “Lolita”, Rob Reiner’s “The Sure Thing” and “Stand by Me”. These posters are easily replaceable should we grow tired of our hall display. To recover some money back, go to the thrift stores at Cubao X and Kamuning for a quick sale.
Your walls shouldn’t be boring and you don’t need to put a Warhol or Pollock to make them exciting. Be creative and let your imagination flow. Make your own set of retro posters and put them up.