Our $45 Living Room Wall Art Update

It's time to say goodbye to the random black and white Ikea artwork in our Living Room and hello to something more personal! 

During my first go-around decorating our Living Room, I found these photos and frames at Ikea. I thought the photos were nice, elegant and they would blend well in our Living Room (also budget friendly). 

Now that we have been looking at them for 3 years, I kept getting an itch to change them.  I thought it would be nice to use some of the photos we took on our Europe trip. A lot of them turned out beautiful and had wonderful memories attached to them.

I presented this idea to my hubby, then he pointed out a few concerns...

Alex (in grumpy old man voice)- "We brought out point and shoot camera on our vacation, won't the picture quality be kind of crappy in larger sizes?" 

Carla - "Not sure, I would have to try and order them to see if the resolution is bad"

 Alex (still grumpy voice)- "What if you can't print them in sizes that will fit those frames? That would be dumb to have to buy new frames"

Carla- "Yes, I don't want to buy new frames, I will measure the existing ones and try to order photos that are the same or close to the measurements"

Alex- "Well okay, I want to pick the pictures though!"

After that fun discussion I measured the frames and photos.  Here's what we needed...

1- 5" x 7"

 1- 11" x 17"

 3- 4" x 6" (easy)

1- 6" x 8"

1- 20" x 28"

When it came to choosing the pictures, we both agreed that photos from Croatia would be perfect!  Alex's family heritage is Croatian (as is our last name), and we absolutely loved our visit to the beautiful city of Split.  Here is a closer look of the photos we selected.  Pretty amazing for a point and shoot camera, right?

Cathedral of Saint Domnius from within Emperor Diocletian's Palace

Inside the Cathedral Tower looking out toward the Adriatic Sea

View of the Adriatic Sea from a random roadside stop

A beautiful roadside stop along our walk from Kasjuni beach

Sunset from our hotel balcony

A view of Bacvice Beach from Bene Beach along the Adriatic Coast



Diocletian's Palace Ruins (taken from our hotel balcony)

 Ahhh, wonderful memories!

I thought about ordering the photos on Shutterfly, but I haven't had the best experience with their prints. Then, on a random Target visit I found that you can order all these sizes and get them back the same day!  Their prices were also pretty reasonable, so I decided to place our order and see how they would turn out.

5" x 7" - $1.49 each x 1= $1.49
16" x 20" (I had to order in place of the odd 11" x 17" size) - $14.99 x 1 = $14.99
4" x 6" - $0.25 each x 3 = $0.75
8" x 10" (I had to order in place of the odd 6" x 8" size) - $2.89 x 1 = $2.89
24" x 36" - $24.99 each x 1 = $24.99

Grand Total- $45.11, not bad!
Once I got the photos back, I started looking through them and I was soooo happy with how they turned out!  I did all black and white prints to keep the formal look and feel. 

I was most impressed with the large 24" x 36" print.  It is hard to tell from this photo (sorry for the reflective glare), but the quality of the print was so nice and crisp!

Here is a closer look at the rest once I got them put into the frames...

Again, sorry about the glare on the pictures. I tried my best to avoid it but it was kind of impossible.

I am so happy with this simple change in our living room. It is wonderful to have a reminder of our trip that we can look at everyday, and it is fun to share the stories about Croatia when we have guests over (we could never do that with the Ikea pictures). 

What do you think of the wall art update?

Also, thank you to everyone that offered up ideas for our kitchen nook storage dilemma!  I will try to follow up with that this week!