Subway Art

Living in the South, But Part of My Heart is Still in NYC

Our living room has been a work in progress for 8 years now. We've had some ups, mostly downs though with it. We should have bumped the room out to make it larger. We should have had a fireplace put in. At the time we were building, we had reasons, good reasons, for not doing these things. Oh, hindsight. 8 years later, here it is. I'm learning to work with the room and am trying to make it a place that is everything I want in our home. 

So we have this large wall that the sofa sits against. (I love the comfort factor of the sofa, but the color and size are not right for what I have in mind for this room. For now, it will be though.) Did I mention it's a big wall? I've rearranged this room more times that I can remember, and have had various artwork hanging. 

I think I finally found something that I love and brings me joy!
But the empty wall over the sofa was making me crazy!!

I had found a photo online of subway art of NYC (We are from NY, living in the south now.) I fell in love with it, but not the price tag so much. So I did a little looking and discovered I could potentially make my own.

Here are the steps I took. 

1) I bought a piece of plywood from Lowes for $16. It's 2 x 4 ft. 

2)I painted it with the left over paint I had from the cabinet seen in picture above. (Tip: Whatever color you want your writing to be, paint the board that color.) 

3) I printed out the words that I wanted to use. I chose this font: Adobe Heiti Std R 

4) I laid all of my words out on the board to get an idea of what it would look like. This took some rearranging and I reprinted a few words, as I found I wanted different sizes for some as I laid them out. 

5) Next came the Easy-Tack Spray adhesive (2 photos above) and contact paper. I sprayed the clear side of the contact paper with the spray adhesive and set the paper words onto it. Essentially, this turns your paper into a sticker. 

**Note: It's a good idea to take a picture of the board when you have everything laid out, just in case...

6) Then came the cutting. There was a lot of cutting! Each letter had to be cut to shape.

7) Once the letters were cut out, I went to work measuring and lining the letters up. Once they were in the right places, I simply peeled the backing of the contact paper and put my "sticker" on the board. Be sure to smooth it down, so that minimal paint gets underneath.

8) I took the board outside and sprayed with black spray paint. I waited about 1/2 hour and went to work removing the stickers and soon had my very own artwork! I still need to have DH hang it this weekend. 

But here it is right after I peeled the letters off!  

I have to say I was worried that I was wasting my time while I was cutting letters out for 3 straight evenings once the kids were in bed. But I am thrilled to pieces that it came out as I'd envisioned!

So for about $25, I was able to make this subway art for our family room wall. When DH and I dating and engaged, we lived on Long Island and I worked in Midtown Manhattan. 

I love this piece of art because each word that I put on the board has a special meaning to us, whether it was the street that I worked on, where our first date was, or just places that we spent time together.

The room is still a work in progress (and I think it always will be at this point-lol), but here it is with my new wall art. 

Any suggestions? Crown molding is on the list...as is a new sofa (or at least a sofa cover).