DIY vintage-look art for the office

DIY vintage-look art for the office

• 6.19.2021

Everything is coming together! I’m so close to done with the office renovation and this week I’m highlighting the art I chose, and how I got it printed. 

Thanks to Mpix for partnering with me on this One Room Challenge!

New here?

If you're new to this blog from the ORC site, welcome!! I'm Suzannah, a longtime DIYer and design lover currently making over our 1937 Tudor revival style home, our second fixer-upper. My style is modern traditional and I'm always working toward high quality design.

I have a 3-year-old and 9-month-old, but my husband and I have done almost all of the work on our homes ourselves! I've blogged about all of it so you can check out my tutorials page and room reveals to see. You can also follow along with me and my projects on Instagram! I also co-host the Your Home Story podcast!

See all my posts about this ORC here! 

• Week 1: Before and inspiration
• Week 2: Round-up of 11 great patterned jute rugs
• Week 3: Change in direction, and new rug
• Week 4: When to paint original historic wood trim
• Week 5: How to replace hardware/switch plates in a historic home
• Week 6: DIY custom slipcover progress
• Week 7: DIY vintage-look art
• Week 8: Reveal!

DIY vintage-look art

I often leave art for the last minute with these room updates and I tried really hard not to do that this time. I knew I wanted an eclectic mix of vintage-ey pieces and gold and black frames, but how to put it all together?? 

I started thrift shopping for gold frames and got a good variety. Then it was just a matter of choosing the right public domain museum downloads for each frame and size! I’ve shared about art downloads before and I love getting them from the original source. A fellow home decor blogger, Katie from A Home is Announced, has put together an incredible resource on her site: the FREE print shop of public domain art! She has several collections with different themes and I had fun scrolling and finding the perfect pieces. 

I mixed in a couple actual antique or vintage pieces (on the shelf--haven't hung them yet).

The tree is one I’ve saved before (and included in my tree art downloads round-up), and this city sketch is so cool in a black IKEA frame I had. (IKEA frames aren’t always standard US sizes so I matched the width and the bottom of the print is hidden under the mat.) 

For the two oil painting prints, I took the glass out of the frame for an oil painting look and cause it really shows them better, less glare, particularly with the dark images. The prints can be framed on their own because I got them on single weight matboard from Mpix. They are a matte finish, and giclee print which is a really high quality. I have ordered several prints this way from Mpix and love them! 

The bright yellow landscape came in that frame from Goodwill and I don’t mind it so I kept it, although I did spray paint the frame white. It’s not my favorite though so I might change that art sometime! 

The city sketch is also a mat giclee print from Mpix, although no mat board because I knew it would be behind the mat and glass. 

I love this big beautiful moody landscape (I brightened it a bit before ordering) over our otherwise plain, modern desk area (which I still need to style—like the upside down box I’ve been using to raise my laptop up? Kidding.). 

I just absolutely love the quality of these prints from Mpix and I’m happy to share them with you! Plus you can get 25% off with my code createenjoy2521, through 7/31!

Few more things to do before this room is done, can’t wait!

Thanks to Mpix for partnering with me on this One Room Challenge! And use createenjoy2521 for 25% off your order through 7/31!

Check out the featured One Room Challenge participants here and the guest participants in each week's post here. And, you can enter your email here to get updates when I share posts every week about this project! Thanks for following along!