Creating a Polaroid wall

Last week, with the snow storm in Seattle I was able to slip out to the art supply store down the street and picked up some stuff to fix my polaroid wall I put up back in May. It was quick and easy, just some plastic flashing and some spray adhesive, but after the warm summer and the weight from the Polaroids the flashing started to peel away from the wall. I’d been wanting to replace it with something else but just didn’t have the time, or any ideas on what to put up there in its place. I loved the flexibility to be able to put up and replace whatever photos I wanted or recently taken, but obviously the current setup wasn’t working. I thought about following Mark Bixby’s lead and doing something with scrap steel and magnets, but I didn’t really like the little magnet dots and didn’t have any scrap steel lying around.

Luckily, a few months ago my crafty neighbor and architect stopped by and had an idea using some bass wood and some push pins. I loved the idea, but of course work and life got in the way. Fortunately, the snow left me no excuse but to just sit down and do it. I ended up modifying his concept a bit, and am more than happy with the results. I wanted to make sure and document it here just in case someone else is looking for to do something similar. In the end it only took me a few hours it get it all setup, which included about an hour’s worth of scrubbing my walls to get rid of the spray adhesive I’d used on my first failed attempt.

What you’ll need

• X 1/16 in. x 1 in. Bass wood
• X 1/16 in. x 1/8 in. Bass wood
• 1 pack of 1/2 in. Wire nails
• Glue (I used Sobo craft glue but I’m pretty sure any glue that works on wood would work fine)
• Polaroids

Since the bass wood lengths and number of them don’t matter the actual number of strips you’ll need is flexible. The ones I found at the art supply store down the street were 24 in. in length.

Directions

Measure 5/8 in. down from the top of the 1 in. strip and mark each side. This gives makes the visible portion of the polaroid an almost exactly square frame but leaves just a little extra white space to be visually pleasing. It also gives the polaroid enough support so it doesn’t flop forward. Apply the glue to the 1/8 in. strip (I just used my finger) and line up each end to the marks on the 1 in. strip. I just eyeballed keeping this straight but you could mark a line down the back of the piece of wood. Let dry.

Fig. 1 Polaroid wall cross section

When attaching them to the wall just hammer the wire nails through both the 1/8 in. and the 1 in. piece of wood and then the wall. See fig. 1 to see how it all lines up. The first few I did I ended up going a bit to close to the end and they split the 1/8 in. strip a bit as you can see in the photo they still work fine, just but be a bit careful.

They’ve held up great, there’s no messy adhesive on my walls and the photos aren’t bowed out like they were on my previous version.