Glass Door Turned Photo Gallery

On one of our previous trips to Ikea, we picked up glass door in the As-Is section. It had no hardware or holes drilled in it yet, just a few minor scratches. I thought it would make a perfect picture frame. For $20, that's a great deal, especially if you consider the price of glass alone.

We hung it in the upstairs hallway right away, but it was some time before we filled it with photos. First I needed to decide which photos to choose. Pictures of us? Of the dogs? Vacation? Which one? I'm not great at narrowing down my options.

Then Black's Photo Centre had a 3-day sale - 75% off on oversized photos. That forced me to get my butt in gear and choose some pictures already. Each glass pane was 17" x 21", so I went with the 12" x 18" size (the next option up was 16" x 24" so that was no good). With the 75% discount it ended up being about $15 for all three pictures, including tax. Now, that's a deal! As a little side plug for Black's - you just upload the photos and within a few days (just 1 hour for smaller photos) you can go pick them up at your nearest store. I love how easy it is.

The three pictures I chose were:

They were all taken on a hike in Gravenhurst a couple of years ago. The trails are beautiful, but we don't go there nearly often enough. I absolutely adore that shot of the two dogs walking along together, like they're having a little chat. Plus, who doesn't like to look at dog butts?

I used thick poster board for matting, and cut a 3 inch border all around, making the photo area 11" x 15". Because there is no backing board like a regular picture frame would have, I had to tape the heck out of it so that it would stay in place. But from the front you would never know.

Now we have some decoration in a mostly drab hallway. The greens in the pictures really stand out and I find they attract my eye every time I walk down the hall. I still have to buff out the areas where I repaired the scratches, but the frame is looking a lot better than it did in the first picture. I'm pretty sure Tom thought I was wasting money by buying the door frame, but now that it's all done (and for less than $50 all together), he'll admit that it looks pretty nice.