Accessible Artwork
a few tips and tricks to sourcing beautiful artwork without breaking the bank
Artwork is a defining accent in a room and can elevate the overall design (or in some cases do the opposite). However, art is one of the design selections that ranges greatly in price point. For areas in your home where you want artwork but you don’t want to break the bank, we’re going to share our favorite sources and tricks to finding unique (and even sometimes original) pieces for a good price.
These sources are certainly no trade secret by any means but incase you haven’t used or heard of them, we thought we’d share our experience.
Juniper Print Shop is an incredibly accessible source for printed artwork. You can either purchase the print or a digital download and then print and frame the art on your own (also, they are great digital downloads if you have The Frame TV and want to use it there). I would argue that a really nice frame and/or mat is almost more important than the artwork itself, especially if you’re using a print.
We used a print in our Mill Road entry (pictured above) and had it custom framed at a local shop here in Salt Lake (Tanner Frames), in a pretty walnut frame with anti-reflective glass. The framing wasn’t necessarily inexpensive, given the size of this print, but it was more cost effect compared to buying a pre-framed print or an original art piece.
We also used Juniper Prints for the frames in our Oak Hill Drive library shelves - we literally just printed off the digital print on our office computer and used frames from Crate and Barrel, and it looked great! We also used a digital print above the guest room bed, which we then framed using Framebridge.
Speaking of Framebridge, again, it’s not a insider trade source but it’s a great retail option for getting prints, kids artwork, objects, etc. framed. We’ve used them often for many of our clients and have really loved the quality of their frames and mats. There are a few different mat options and we like the “off white” if you’re using a classic mat (it looks more yellow online than it is in real life).
The linen mat options are also really pretty and make the artwork look a little more high-end (we have only used the cream color). Here are a few frame styles we like, beyond their classic walnut styles.
Another way to add interest to your wall is by hanging textiles, flags, pendants, plates, maps, tennis rackets, (just to name a few to give you some new ideas). This is one of our favorite types of artwork to incorporate for a few reasons: it breaks up the hard lines of typical framed artwork, adds more dimension to the wall, and it is almost always less expensive to use textiles or plates than framed art.
When it comes to securing objects to your wall, here are a few hardware links we like to use.
Plate Hanging Discs (for a more flush application)
Drywall Claw (super easy to use and very supportive)
Lastly, we are always scouring Etsy for well priced vintage oil paintings or sketches. You do have to do some digging when sourcing here and weed through some very weird stuff but that makes finding the diamond in the rough all the more satisfying. Some of my favorite favorite pieces we’ve found have been from an intense Etsy dive.
Here are a few I have my eye on for anyone who wants to buy them before we do ;)
Thanks so much for reading! As always, feel free to ask us any other questions regarding artwork and if you have any good affordable artwork sources, share them with us in the comments.
Love EVERY post so much and this one was especially helpful!!
Such great suggestions, thank you! Do you have a go-to frame shop you frequent in SLC?