This post is sponsored by Minted.
We’ve been rocking the same gallery wall in the Curbly House dining room for nearly four years. It was full of treasured family photos, and although we loved it, we were ready to change things up a bit. To give the room a fresh feel, we got some help from Minted, using their personalized art styling service to find new images that we loved.
Minted is a design marketplace connecting you to unique products from the world’s best emerging artists. It’s a place for artists to be seen and discovered, and enables artists and consumers alike to follow their creative passion. You can even commission an original from independent artists!
Typically, the process of choosing a cohesive group of mixed art would send me into a tailspin. It’s hard to pull the trigger with art because it’s so personal. Each piece makes a statement and making a collection of pieces sing in harmony is difficult. That’s why I was thrilled to work with a Minted designer. Based on the results of our style quiz, our designer put together a cohesive set of artwork that would have taken me a lifetime to chose on my own.
How we got here
Before we tell you about the process of redesigning the room, let’s take a closer look at how it used to look, and how it came to be that way. As you might remember, four years ago we became the luckiest people on the design block when Emily Henderson came to our house and made magic happen.
We had just completed an epic remodel of our home, and it was primed for design. Had she not come and made it rain paintings, rugs, and furniture in our house, I can promise you much of the house would still be in a liminal state.
We were so exhausted from having a baby, moving, remodeling, moving out, and then back in again, that our creative and design energies added up to ZERO. Bruno and I will feel grateful to Emily for the rest of our days because she made our house feel like our home at a time when we could not fathom the process. Four years later, I we’re still completely in love with every inch of our house.
Why change?
The dining room is at the literal center of our home. We eat many meals there as a family, and it’s where our guests gather when we host friends and family for dinner. The gallery wall is full of family photos, snapshots of who we all were, little whispers of the past, and it’s a masterpiece. Am I crazy to want to change it up for awhile? Maybe, but there are a few reasons I’m going for it:
1. The frames are forever moving, and I am forever straightening them. No amount of museum wax seems to keep them stable, and I will reclaim 10 minutes out of every day by installing something different.
2. My children are forever touching the glass with their precious little paws and they’ve now both adopted the adorable habit of leaning back in their chairs whenever their bottoms hit the seat. As a result, I clean the glass frames a couple times a week, and live in constant fear that a child will come crashing through a frame (it has happened once, and clearly no one learned a lesson).
3. I wanted to try something new. When the possibility of reworking the wall with the help of Minted’s design service arrived, I jumped. I like the idea of having something more eclectic and I’m excited about giving the room a new feel.
Using Minted’s Art Styling Service
Minted offers an art styling service for only $79, which includes unlimited rounds of styling help.
We started by taking a thorough style quiz (try it! it’s fun and there’s no obligation). Bruno and I sat down and looked through about 20 different pieces, clicking the ones that resonated with us.
Then we answered a few more questions about the decor styles we most connect to (vintage, contemporary, mid-century modern, muted minimalism). We submitted a few photos of the room, and a few days later, our designer, Kathlyn, created two different mock-ups for us to consider.
Minted offers access to an incredible amount of unique artwork from many of the world’s emerging artists, including, for example, stuff like this, from our friend and inspirational blogger, Jaime Derringer:
Left to right: Composition 2, Planar 1, & Composition 4, by Jaime Derringer.
Because there’s so much to choose from, having some help to curate the best stuff was really awesome.
We have other artwork in the room (on the walls flanking the new art wall), so we wanted to be mindful of colors, style, and the overall cohesiveness of the wall.
Bruno and I liked the “Option 1” mock up, because the artwork was a much better fit for our dining room. We loved the mix of photographs, line drawings, and abstract paintings. The color palette was cohesive, but not too match-y, and we loved how organic the pieces felt together. However, there was one piece we weren’t crazy about, so we asked Kathlyn if we could swap it for another piece with a similar color scheme. Later that day, she sent us this rendering (which we loved in a very big way):
Product List for our Minted Art gallery wall:
Salvage Barn Series 03 – 30″ x 30″ (Frame: White Border Print + White Wood Frame)
Dusk Sky – 30″ x 40″ (Frame: Matted Print + Natural Raw Wood)
Roughshod – 24″ x 24″ (Frame: White Border Print + White Wood Frame)
Point of View – 18″ x 24″ (Frame: Full Bleed Print + White Wood Frame)
Fleeting Light – 16″ x 16″ (Frame: Matted Print + Natural Raw Wood)
Product List for the Dining Room:
- Rug: Herringbone Cotton Flat Woven Rug (size 9 x 12)
- Table: Vintage – Craigslist Find
- Chandelier: Sonneman Tempo Rubbed Bronze Chandelier (Discontinued, Similar: Here)
- Captain’s Chairs: Forza Taupe Twill Mid-Century Accent Chairs
- Dining Chairs: Arthur Umanoff Vintage Chairs – Craigslist Find
- Pitcher: Porcelain Pitcher
- Bowl: Basket Bowl
Once we had our artwork chosen, we modified a few of the frames and mat options to match some of our other artwork in the house (and keep the project on track budget-wise). Less than a week later, all of our artwork was delivered, carefully wrapped and ready to hang.
Our favorite thing about the artwork was how light and airy it felt. As a result, we were inspired to swap out the rug for something a little lighter (albeit, just as durable).
The dining room is totally and completely transformed. It’s a thrilling thing for such a simple project to make such a big impact on a room. We are in love with the look of our new dining room. It feels open, airy, light, and visually captivating. I gasp every time I catch a glimpse of the new art wall.
Share on Pinterest!
All photos, except where noted, are by Bruno Bornsztein.
This post was sponsored by Minted. All opinions, thoughts, and words are mine. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Curbly; the revenue that we generate from posts like these helps pay for photography, blogging materials, and all the other things that go into making the all the free content we product on Curbly!
