Framed frames on Trading Spaces

Dancinbaer

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Apr 26, 2002
Posts
1,267
Loc
De Pere, WI
As I am not a sports fan, sunday night we watched one of our favorite shows on TLC, "Trading Spaces - Family". In one of the houses the dining room was to be redecorated. Hanging in the original dining room was something I thought interesting as a framer. The walls were a deep red. Hanging on one wall the home owner had hung four very ornate gold frames. Each frame had a different design. One frame hung inside the other with no picture or art work in the smallest frame. So you saw the wall inside the smallest frame, then the red of the wall between the smallest and the next size frame, then the next largest frame, then the red of the wall, then the next largest frame and so on.

Very different.

For those not familiar with the show. TLC has two shows, "Trading Spaces" and Trading Spaces - Family". Two couples or families team up with two designers, one designer per house, one carpenter and a budget of $1000. For two days they swap houses and redecorate one room in each others house. Neither team knows how there own house is being decorated until the end of the second day when it is completed.
 
Hmmm, one frame hanging inside another with wall color showing through between each frame?

Sounds like a perfect job for a couple of sets of WallBuddies to me. Wire would surely show through the frame openings and ruin the effect.

Framerguy

P.S. Darrell, if you are monitoring, you can apply the commission check to my next order. :D
 
I saw somthing kinda like that somewhere else, but I have no idea where. I've thought of doing something similar, but with a picture in the center and only 2 frames. It would be a great idea for those customers (myself included) that love a certain frame, but don't have anything to go in it.

Yes, I think frames can be a work of art in and of themselves!

And, if I do it, I will for sure use wall buddies :D
 
I like that look Denny. I am actually working on a project right now that I saw in a home magazine. They did a grouping of several family photos that were each individually framed and then they added a big empty frame around the grouping. My thought was that it will encourage adding an additional frame with nothing in it. We will see. Need to find the camera so I can start taking some pictures of some of this
stuff.

Oh yeah, there is another one I am working on. It is a frame on the wall and the art will be hung with two, count them two garters. The picture and garters will be suspended with just the wall behind it and the frame around it. Saw that in a magazine too. Probably won't post a picture of that because I can just hear the screams of "Off with her head", cause there will be nothing conservation about it at all. Looks cool though.
 
Emibub, If you don't feel comfortable posting the garter project here, at least send me a photo! I have a customer/friend who is a garter-lovin' fool, and boy oh boy would that make his socks roll up and down!

I really like the idea of "frames as art" on the wall by themselves. I found a ratty but interesting old frame once and collaged pictures and mementos from my life all over the surface. It is like a brief history of me. I didn't want to put any pictures in it, cause that would be too limiting, and I didn't want to "waste" wall-space with a mirror, so I hung it on the wall with monofiliment suspended from an antique porcelain crowned picture hanger, then I filled up the inside space with a variety of tiny frames. Looks cool.
 
I think the place some of you may have been exposed to this was in Atlanta a couple of years ago. I forget the event but it was social in nature and it was up in the higher levels of one of the hotels. There was a rather large display of a grouping of frames (Just as you described) .
Personally i have a bit of a problem with it,despite the facts that i am not an Interior designer and I have been told that if the framing is the main focal point and not the ART we have done something wrong. However i have deliberately entered a "Star Burst Matting " done by Brian Wolf in the PBS Art Auction under the onair Title of "It's an Art" because i do firmly belive what we do is and art and some Framers bring the ART to it's highest level.
However I think a group of empty frames looks like "when are you going to finish that"
and I think it just might cause some clients to think we over emphize or work TOO much.
It brings to mind an old Decor Cartoon that depicts a Humungus ornate moulding being used on a 5x7 or less image of a single posey and the Artist/Gallery owner proudly announceing "Icall it FRAME".
I try to enhance the work not overpower it and definatly not replace it ,despite how artistic OUR work is.
BUDDY
PS Besides Howmany clients balk at a simle stacked frame due to the added cost can imagen th price of a display like this and what MOST consumer's reaction would be?
 
It's a good thing we don't all like the same thing and it's a good thing my daughter and I have very different taste. While I was out sick she designed a mat for a customer with a totally overbearing HUGH southwestern design below. :eek: The customer was so thrilled with the design that when she came to pick up she brought another picture to remat and a friend with a print to mat bringing in some very serious money on jobs where the husband is making the frames. :D To bring this back to the topic.... I put mirrors in frames I want to show off for themselves.

Thanks for all the great info I get lurking here.
Linda
 
Empty Frames are IN ... :cool:
I just opened my new issue of Decor (Feb 04) and found an ad by LJ (page 11), that shows a nice collection of frames with no art. It's simple and elegant.
I personally love the ad because black, silver (and purple) are my colors. :D
 
I have seen the Frame in side a frame inside a frame! Now where was that? Aaahaa now I remember, we have been displaying our ready made frames that way for decades. Yes that is the way we hang our ready made frames for display in the store 20 x 24 with a 16 x 20 inside and then a 11 x 14 inside that and then a 8 x 10 or 5 x 7 inside that.
Yes the originality is bewildering.

[ 02-07-2004, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: GUMBY, GCF ]
 
I missed the ending of the show - Did they put the frames back up like they were? I didn't think it looked that bad!
 
No Mike they did not put the frames back up. As I remember the room had a whole different look and they would not have fit with the new decor.
 
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