DIY: Old Windows into Rustic Picture Frames

I posted here that we replaced all the windows in our house. Yippee! I can open and close them without pulling a muscle. Big stuff.

Part of the cost of getting the windows replaced was having the old ones hauled away. I despise getting rid of demolition stuff, so that worked for me.

It worked for Andy too, until he had the idea that became the project he is “most proud of.”

That’s right. The man who gutted and then rebuilt our kitchen [with a little help] called this his proudest project. Gather close loved ones and we’ll show you how to take old windows and turn them into very cool wall art.

Looking at this pile of crappy windows it’s hard to imagine doing anything useful with them. But Andy had an idea so he snagged four from the mix.

He found some cool images he liked and printed them [part of Andy’s job requires him to learn about new high-end printers so he can test them and we get cool art to keep]. He just did a Google search for files that were big enough.

He found places in the house where the frames could be hung. They he pre-drilled holes. At least, that’s what I think he’s doing.

He used clear magnets to hold the pictures in place. They are the kind where you put one magnet on one side and then the opposite one on the other. Like those old magnet earrings Claire’s used to sell. Anyone? No? Ok.

Then, he hung them. Easy as that.

Here is the view where you can see two of the pictures. The cool thing, for us at least, is that we can swap out the pictures whenever we want.

This one is actually my least favorite, but Andy likes it. If you look closely you can see the magnets on the four corners. Makes it very easy to change things out. I think you could do a lot with this. Do lots of photographs as a collage, use it for your kids artwork that you want to swap out often…there are a lot of possibilities.

This one greets you at the front door. Works well for fall now. The glare is hard to avoid in pictures, but there isn’t much when you are just looking at it. If you did this by your door this could be a cool place for your “family rules” or a Family Name Established in 2010 type sign.

The side angle. We left it raw but you could totally paint it.

 

This is currently in our multi/no purpose room. This is my favorite image. Note, we printed the pictures smaller so here is a gap and you can see the wall colors. That works well for us because we have relatively neutral colors. If you have something louder you might want to print to the edges or do a border. Or not. I don’t care.I took this one at night. Very moody! This one is in the kitchen. An idea for here is to use it as a dry erase board for writing grocery lists, weekly menus, little love notes to each other. Again, endless options!

This was a really fun, and really inexpensive project. For us it was free, but anyone could make this super inexpensive. I figure if we paid thousands for windows – why not get some free art out of it?!