My Mod Fireplace Art Find

The peacock gravel art was not my only great find the day I went shopping with my mom. We also went to HomeGoods, where I stumbled across an ideal "art" piece for above our living room fireplace. Remember back when I wrote that I was looking for a vintage metal wall sculpture to hang in that space? Well, I was scouting eBay for a while and it started to sink in that I might not strike gold there. First, the space I was looking to fill was pretty large, so I ruled out a lot of the smaller pieces I found. But second, bidding is pretty competitive for those things! Most of the ones I saved in my watch list ended up going for well over $100. Yes, I understand that is actually a very low price in the art world, but we have a few other demands on our budget right now (we're on day 12 without a kitchen, not that anyone's counting) so there was no way I could justify spending that much on a purely esthetic element.

So, back to HomeGoods, where I found this:

How could I pass it up? Metal, large-scale, mod geometric lines, and $30! Total jackpot. The funny thing is this is actually a wine rack. Look, Target has one that's really similar. But that's just between us, okay? I fully plan on telling people that I found this in an exclusive art gallery called H. Güdes. Yes, there's an umlaut.

(Please disregard the boxes holding our kitchen light fixtures and the fact that the door is taped off with plastic.) We got lucky in that there was already a picture hanging doodad installed way up high on the fireplace surround. I definitely wanted to work with that instead of figuring out how to drill new holes in the metal and whether or not there was brick behind it all the way to the ceiling. So, I hung it up and it looked nice, but the black color wasn't quite doing it for me. I wanted it to pop a little more and coordinate better with the other metal tones. And that is why I decided to spray paint it. 

The spray painting took place on a drop cloth in the unfinished area of the basement. It was a little huff-tastic, but it is November in Minnesota, so doing this outdoors was not going to happen. See the little screw holes? I masked those off with painter's tape because I wasn't using them to hang it, and if these blend into the background a little that's just fine with me. Maybe someday if I get really strong wire shears I can snip them off but for now I'll just camouflage.

The tools: Krylon Metallic paint in Copper (which I found at Michael's) and  the Rust-Oleum Comfort Grip! I picked up the Comfort Grip at Home Depot prior to the vent painting project. I want to say it cost around $6, and I initially wondered if it would be useless, but it's totally not. If you're spray painting something for any length of time, this relieves finger cramps and helps you spray evenly.

A few coats later, bada-bing! It totally belongs there. 

See the black screw holes toward the bottom? You have to look reaaallly hard to spot them. 

I'll try to get a better picture tomorrow when we have some daylight. I still want to post some more shots of the rest of the art in the living room, but things are pretty disheveled in there with the kitchen stuff in the way. This is one big decor item checked off the list though, and for only $30. Or $36, if you count the cost of the spray paint. I'm pretty chuffed by this project!