I know what you’re thinking… “Plates on a kitchen wall… isn’t that just TOO obvious?” Maybe, but it’s also “pretty and practical,” and that’s what this blog is all about! Plus, I like to think the random corbel in the middle adds a little something unexpected.

This morning I was getting ready for my husband’s birthday barbecue when I noticed a scratch (or more accurately, “gouge of suspicious origins”) in the kitchen wall. Who knows which piece of heavy construction equipment that’s been steadily trickling in and out of the house actually caused this damage. Not that it matters… but what DOES matter is that there are people coming over today and they will all be standing around with nothing to better to do than stare at this humongous scratch in my otherwise completely blank kitchen wall! Right!? OK so I get a little carried away sometimes… there is no way anyone would have noticed that mark with all the delicious food and yard games going on. But I decided a year is a long enough time to wait to decorate the kitchen wall and figured “there’s no time like the present!”

For the record, I think some people get the idea that I’m “effortlessly” creative, but sometimes it just feels compulsive. Like, I have to do it and I have to do it RIGHT NOW!

So, instead of, I don’t know, say, prepping food or doing anything else more pressing, I went and picked through my collection of mismatched dishes and got to work laying out an arrangement. And thank goodness I had a handful of little plate hangers, too!

First, I laid everything out on the ground to see how I wanted it all positioned. The wine bottle was a placeholder for the little shelf that I wanted to use but hadn’t yet tracked down.

I took this picture primarily to give myself a point of reference for how things needed to go on the wall. I ended up referring back a bunch of times. I hung the shelf first, right over top of the scratch, then hung all the other pieces around it. Even though I had laid it all out on the floor beforehand, Adam still had to do a bit of patient plate-holding in various positions while I stood back and assessed the layout to be sure it looked OK.

Pretty cute quick fix for a bare wall, don’t you think? I don’t know if it’s my “forever” kitchen decor, but for about 15 minutes of work I think it’s definitely a look that I can live with for a while.

Happy hanging!