There are no two ways about it, hanging pictures is a drag. A total drag. The dragiest of drags. I know what you’re thinking “Is that even a thing?” Yes – it is, because I just hung a whole bunch of pictures and I am an authority of things that are a drag:
See – and that’s just a small sampling of how often I point out things that are a drag. I know what I’m talking about. And now I get to add “Hanging Pictures is a drag” to the drag specific list of posts.
Most people who swing through Life of an Architect know that we recently changed the firm name to Malone Maxwell Borson Architects AND that we just moved into our new offices this last weekend. That’s right, I had the pleasure of working till midnight on Friday, and then a couple of 12 hour days on Saturday and Sunday in an effort to get everything up and running come Monday morning. Guess what?
I didn’t make it.
My last office sucked and drained a little bit of my life force every single day and I am very happy and grateful to move out of that space, but as the moving company kept dropping off more and more crates of stuff to our new office, I’ve been wondering to myself thinking “How we did we ever have so much stuff in our old office?”
I took the above picture around 11pm Friday night and despite the fact that I felt that a lot of progress had been made, you certainly can’t tell by this picture. While I was planning on wowing everybody with a post today on my awesome new office, it isn’t going to happen. Not yet at least.
I thought I would show you one aspect of how I spent 3 hours of my Saturday afternoon – organizing and hanging pictures to populate one of our “Glory” Walls. Every architectural office has one – some are bigger than others but I’m not going to focus on that today. Instead I am going to focus on the misery that is hanging pictures.
These are a few of the awards and certificates that we have framed – all have been sitting in a box for a while but now we have some room to put them up. I looked around for volunteers to tackle this particular task but as I scanned the room – expecting to see hands enthusiastically raised in the air, pumping up and down in “Pick me! Pick me!” fashion, all I saw was people looking down their shoes.
and a tumbleweed rolled by …
Okay, I suppose that means I have to do it and that’s okay. I don’t ask people to do things I won’t do, just the things I don’t want to do. It might be a subtle difference, but it is a difference.
Whenever I need to solve a problem, I reach for a pen and a roll of trace. It slows me down enough to typically avoid careless mistakes. In this instance, I needed my pen, some trace and a calculator. Who says you don’t need to know some math to be an architect? Okay, nobody says that – you do have to know some math to be an architect … but this was easy math.
The only thing that was really tricky about hanging these frames was that they were all different sizes and we know that there are a bunch that we are still missing and we’ll need to swap out some that are on this wall with ones that are currently in the process of being framed.
So how does that work? Well, since I know that these frames will/might need to be interchangeable from time to time, rather than align them along the top of the frame, they are all aligned through their center points. This creates the illusion of alignment but the reality is that all the interstitial spaces between one frame and it’s neighbor to the top/bottom/left/right is different. The spaces don’t appear to be irregular but they are … this is when 3-dimensional thinking really pays off. The only thing about this method that was a drag was that it required a lot of measuring. Not just the size of the frames but the slack in the cord attached to each frame.
Tedious.
So, lots of easy math later, we were able to start driving nails into the wall.
Somebody (it was “Augrey“) said that they might be a little concerned about somebody (me) standing on top of the new Knoll desk benching system we just installed … something about a “weight limit” and blah blah blah. So I had to get Ryan to drive in the picture hangers since he weighs less than I do.
For the record, I’m taller than Ryan.
I don’t think that the desk would have had a problem holding my weight, but Ryan does have smaller hands than me and I probably would have hit my fingers a few times. If Ryan did hammer a finger, he kept it to himself. He knows me well enough to know that I had about 20 “hammer” jokes at the ready.
So here is our Glory Wall. Looks terrible doesn’t it? We haven’t put the level on them yet and if you don’t use a level on your pictures you aren’t really hanging pictures, you’re tacking stuff up on the wall … like a poster.
From this angle, everything looks pretty good. My space, in case you were curious, is the double wide “work” area on the left-hand side. I get to walk by everybody to get to my desk, but unless you are coming to see me, there’s no reason for you to walk all the way down to my space.
Unless you’re Augrey Maxwell, she sits in the double wide work space to the right … for now.
The picture above is a little deceptive. You might be thinking to yourself that the space looks okay, nice and tidy … pretty close to done. Right?
Wrong!
Let’s back up a few steps …..
Holy “Everybody else’s space looks like crap!” Well, there’s a reason why everything looks all cluttery and piled up despite the fact that we tripled our square footage. We have a big space out front (that will house ‘Voltron‘) and we are waiting for the concrete floor to get finished.
And they are definitely NOT finished.
We moved in and there were lots of “red drops” on the floor … but under the wax. They look like blood to me and when I pointed them out to the contractor his response (after a very demonstrative display where he whipped out a big pocket knife and scrapped on the floor) was less than reassuring.
Bob: [pointing at floor] What are those? Did someone bleed all over the concrete floor?” Why didn’t that get cleaned up before you waxed the concrete?
Contractor: Those were already there.
Bob: I was here over the weekend and I don’t remember seeing those drops. [looking around] There are a lot of drops everywhere.
Contractor: Do you have a picture showing them not there?
Bob: Probably.
Contractor: [whipping out his pocket knife and scraping the floor] That’s in the concrete, nothing we can do about that.
Bob: Is that a joke? There’s plenty you can do about that. Grind them out.
Contractor: They’re in the concrete, they’re old … they’ve probably always been there and the waxing just made them more noticeable.
Bob: Really? [mental face palm]
Needless to say, our space isn’t really ready for the big reveal. At the very least, there is some blood that needs to be removed. In the meantime, avoid picture hanging as best you can … it really is a drag.
Cheers,
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I couldn’t care less if people think certificates, awards and commendations are pretentious and boring – I worked hard to get every one of those things. That wall is in the very back of the studio and few people would ever get close enough to them to actually read what they were for so I’m not overly worried about it.
We have a spot closer to the front where images go, just haven’t coordinated the framing and the hanging.
I agree! Those certificates represent years of work. Some more than others – I have my TDLR Academy certificate framed.
By the way, centerline alignment is the only way to go with picture hanging. Otherwise you have laundry. Which could be cool if the line was curved…
Wow. I should have known you’d plan picture hanging. Glad you survived, though.
“plan” might be a little generous but I’ll take it.
Thanks Bridget
I’m a total fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants girl. So I’m impressed.
Your glory wall hangings look like they hug the ceiling a little too much…try lowering them a little…is this the best place for your glory wall?…seems odd that you would have it over your work area…shouldn’t it be in your reception area?
Also, next time, save yourself some grief and use a cable system…wait you’re an architect, wouldn’t you be spec’ing this for your client?
There are all sorts of reason why they are as tight to the ceiling as they are, I don’t actually explain all my reasons. These 3 horizontal columns will track around and onto the adjacent wall – the bottom row needs to clear the monitors once they are mounted to the brackets that lift them off the desk top. Once you establish your low mark, there is only 11″ inches to be spread out between the 3 horizontal gaps – 5″ at the ceiling and 3″ inches between the 1st and 2nd row, and the 2nd and 3rd row. The 3″ is a minimum which is why some of the gaps look larger.
We don’t really have a reception area, and we don’t have the walls at the front at which to mount these frames. Besides, everybody knows that these glory walls are for the occupants and not the clients.
I got it, all the frames on all of the “pictures” should be the same. No drawing table in your office?
lots of drawing tables, but only one drafting table. These days when I am busy designing, I am capable of working on a horizontal surface and without a parallel bar. There are times when I wish I still had one but most of my table surface is occupied with architecture in the 8 1/2″ x 11″ sized variety.
Thanks Bob. I just bought picture hangers last night at Lowe’s to hang (after 8 years) a 5′ square framed piece of art in the gallery just outside my office. With your post I might rethink that idea and continue to let it rest on the floor.
maintaining the status quo is underrated. Fight the power and leave that art on the floor!
I tried fighting the urge…. and now I have to patch a small hole in the wall.
hang a picture over the hole. less work.
Bob, you make me want to start talking options with our Realtor… We’ve been in our soulless 5th floor, in one of many anonymous 12-story downtown towers, for 11 years – and have 3 more years before we can start considering. We are also undergoing change at the top (congrats on the top billing, BTW!) … I want to have unique idiosyncrasies and happy accidents in our space that we can discuss to clients and they become part of us – it’s as much about our marketing plan as what we print out and distribute.
We do have color however – we have accent walls of the most vibrant Pantone colors available… I sit next to Pantone 012C – Pure Orange.
I really do like colors – but how is it sitting next to orange? As a general rule I like orange (I’m more of a burnt orange guy myself), but there are some nasty oranges out there.
Color Psychology would have you believe that orange is the color of social communication and optimism … but also superficiality. Sounds like the perfect color for most architects office!!
#scoreboard for you
It’s great – the sparks of accent here are the one thing that keeps us from totally revolting, tearing open the drywall and working in a deconstructed office (which we would love, actually.) The Orange reminds me that, as an adult, I’m not finished with eating creamsicles, as I crave them almost daily (don’t react to it, but it’s still there.) It also backgrounds my framed, Casey Stengel photo very well. The Orange is my co-owner’s idea, I’d ask him if he knows about it being the color of superficiality but I can never remember his last name when I search for his extension on my phone. 😉
When I was a psych major in undergraduate school, we learned that orange was the color of creativity, so that could be promising. Although I didn’t see anything about orange & creativity just now when I googled “color psychology.” Hmmm.
I thought the “blood” was from you hitting yourself with the hammer at first.
Why not go with a big art piece or cool print in the middle of that wall? You could flank each side with 6 awards. . Seems like you guys were just trying to get it all to fit.
If creativity is a trait characteristic of your firm, why is color not used to advantage ?
Scared of color ?
I’m not scared of color but I have a senior partner who thinks white is the end all be all. (but I’ll change that, just give me some time). ”
In my defense, I will point out that the last office I designed had “Leap Frog” green walls.
Bob, Your Glory Wall spacing is amazing. From my side of the aisle, if you and Ryan also considered the color of the frame and mat when arranging your art, it would be even better. (Dare I say, Glorious?) Maybe hang the darker frames with some symmetry; perhaps three of the darker framed items in the middle vertical row (with the one item that graphically is unlike the others in the middle.) Then, you could add two of your darker framed/matted items in the first two spaces and the last two spaces of both the top and bottom horizontal rows. I’m going to go listen to the Boss’s “Glory Days” now…. Sorry for the long comment!
sorry, my head got a little foggy halfway through your description. I went for as completely random looking as possible (which is actually far from random).
I didn’t want to spend a ridiculous amount of time on a wall that most people will only glance at under ideal circumstances. There is also the future consideration of additional items that are currently being framed that will enter into the arrangement mix.
…and the crack in the floor. Is that a feature?
absolutely! It’s not a new floor and concrete cracks so not only is it a feature, it’s a living sample for discussions with clients who want to refinish their existing 50 year old concrete floors
Oh, yes, I can understand what a drag it must be, but since I don’t have anything of that quantity to hang, I’ll have to wait to experience it on my own. Unfortunately, today, though, I have my own drag to face – the first day back to school!!! Ahh, root canal sounds like more fun. New teacher, new classmates, and you wonder things like who is it that’s gonna sit by me? do they smell? do they have the same warped sense of humor like I do? and is that cutie from my last class gonna be in this class so I can flirt with her again? You know, the important stuff. Anyway, good luck in your new office!!
Those things are the basis of loads of good memories … except for the potential for stinky people sitting by you. The good news is that when you recall just how smelly that person is when you get older, it will be funny. Life is awesome that way.
Good luck!
look above the ceiling tiles just above those spots…no wait, don’t do that
That is hilarious and dark … you surprised me this morning Lee, I might need to add you to a different sort of twitter list.
I’ll take that as positive.
Great post. I really enjoyed your story – I could feel your pain re: things that are a drag. I reckon you could add house moving to that list as well. If the blood stains won’t come out of the floor – why not make it a feature? To accompany the blood, add some feature sweat and tears near it and call it art. Or a joke. Or a talking point.
make no mistake, the blood stains came out because I took care of it myself. It was [sarcastically] so hard to do …
I could easily write a post on how house moving sucks but I like to spread that sort of misery around just a bit.
Bob: Why not leave the blood, include a chalk outline of the sub’s body and use it to educate clients why accountability is such a important trait of your firm.