Recently I wrote about the proper placement of art – fitting the space (vertical placements on vertical spaces and horizontal placements on horizontal spaces), proximity to furniture, proximity to other art, etc.  I also recently posted instructions on how to glaze a wall while working on the walls of my master suite.  Low and behold, the topics of these two posts collided in the toilet room of my master bath.  Intrigued or worried about my sanity?  Read on…

The Dilemma

After glazing the master bath toilet room I wanted to use a piece of art I already owned on the wall above the toilet.  I believed the art would pull in the proper colors, reflect the style of the rest of the bedroom suite, and there was no place for it anywhere else in our new home.  I also wanted  to add a bit of storage by using an iron shelf to hold a lidded basket filled with toilet paper rolls.  I faced a problem, however, because the square shape of the art frame did not filling the vertical space enough between the toilet and the iron shelf.  Lowering the shelf was not an option unless I wanted my husband clobbering his head continually and moving the art up closer to the shelf only widened the bare gap from the bottom of the frame to the top of the toilet (the flush button is on top of the tank and the top surface is too narrow to set anything).

 

The Solution

I decided adding scrolled iron (to go with the shelf) or scrolled wood (that I would paint to go with the picture frame) provided the solution for easily and inexpensively filling the top and bottom gaps around the art.  With the scrolls in place the vertical wall space would be properly filled, cohesive, attractive and functional.

It sounded easy enough – but for the life of me I could not find ready-made iron or wood scrolls anywhere that fit the size of the space I needed to fill.  One day while we were in JoAnn’s my husband spotted the unlikely solution.  He noticed an iron votive candle holder (on sale for $11!) with scrolly sides and vowed he could deconstruct the piece (cut it apart!) so I could use it.  He gets a gold star for this one!

The Project

Here’s the candle holder  in it’s entirety:

 

 

These pieces resulted from using a hand tool with a grinder blade to cut the votive cup rings off the two side scrolls:

 

Tools used to install the two scrolls included screws painted to match the iron (Tip: insert the screws slightly into a scrap of wood in order to easily spray paint them), mollies to anchor the screws in the wall, a screwdriver and a level:

 

After placing the top iron piece at the correct height and leveling it,  use a pencil to mark the screw locations:

 

With the top scroll in place you can see how it complements the scrolling iron on the side of the shelf:

The Result

With both the top and bottom iron pieces in place the square art has been expanded to fit the vertical space and tie into the style of the shelf and bedroom.

 

I really appreciate my husband’s keen eye for spotting the votive holder and his willingness to cut the iron and hang it too.  Lesson learned: stay open to unlikely solutions when faced with a decorating problem. 

What About Your Unlikely Solutions?

Tell us about a decorating problem you solved in an unexpected way.  Or maybe you haven’t found the answer yet – share the problem and perhaps one of our readers will be your solution!  Reply with a comment below or email me at solutions@yourdecoratinghotline.com.