103 Basement Progress: Playroom Art Display

As you know, we have been slowly working away on the basement and had recently shifted some focus onto giving the kids a happy place to play.

It's definitely coming together and the kids love that they have a shared retreat to call their own.  But it was getting time to bring in some color!


For me, I knew the best way for us to bring in bright pops of color would be through artwork created by the kids.

So I started thinking of options and ideas.  There have been SO many cute art display projects floating around the bloggy world lately {some even seen here from you fabulous readers}!

{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}

And here were my requirements for our project:

• It had to be an easy way to change out to the kid's latest creations
• Gallery style to allow the kids to feel proud of their personal project
• To provide an easy way for me to photograph the kid's completed work, for archiving purposes

Picture frames look SO lovely and clean, but I don't see myself being as quick to switch out current projects if I am going to be forced to stick my fingernails under 8-10 metal frame clips each time I want to swap out their creations.  A large wire or twine display was seriously considered, but I was going for something more special to highlight each piece of art.  The wheels spun for a bit and then I realized that a cabinet door was my solution.

Huh you ask?  A cabinet door?

So the little guy and I ran back to our local Habitat ReStore {love that place} to pick up three maple cabinet doors to the tune of $5 each!

I got right to work by spraying each door with a flat white spray paint.  Just around the outer edges since I planned on painting the inside a different color.

A day later once the white had dried for 24 hours, I taped the cabinet door off with painters tape and rolled the center of the door.

I used Glidden's Blue Lagoon.  LOVE it!

While I was painting, so were the kidlets!

The next step was to measure and pre-drill some holes at the top center of each cabinet door so we could screw in some magnetic clips {we just used some that we already had at home}:

As I mentioned, I really wanted to highlight their personal art pieces, so we added some metal label holders to the bottom of the "frame" or cabinet door front, again, pre-drilling each to be sure we didn't split the wood.

I found a giant pack of the label holders from the Habitat ReStore for $1 {now do you see why I LOVE it there so much?}, but you can also find all sorts of options online, like these ones from Amazon.

Here is where we were at with the project once the clip and label holders were screwed in:

After popping some artwork into the clips....

And a label into each holder...

We were almost all done!  Last step was to add some standard picture hanging brackets to the backside of the cabinet and to hang them using some drywall anchors for added security!

I did one for each boy, so they could each have a designated space to feel "art proud".  And I love that it's easy for me to take a snapshot of their artwork so that I can ultimately make an art book or photo collage!

I decided that I wanted to fill up the empty wall under the window and add a little something unexpected to the space.  Plus, I am such a fan of it being at their level so they can switch it out and easily admire one another's work!

I still have more plans to bring in additional art and some photos of the boys, but I am totally diggin' where the room is going!

I would love to know, did any of you paint anything this weekend?  Or create some artwork of your own?