OCD Complicates Hanging Sneaky Pictures

Sneaky pictures means - doing it when Craig isn't home and hoping he won't notice when he returns. He is pretty good with a hammer & nail but grumpy (Where do you want this again?!) and a procrastinator (picture hanging keeps getting bumped off his to-do lists, funny how that works). Plus I think he considered that nothing more should be hung on these walls since March, and we moved here in February - so since that time I bang around myself, when he's not here, averaging 3 off-center nail holes per hung frame - usually, not always, managing to cover up the extra holes with the picture.

I was so excited about my new Carol Nelsons (http://www.carolnelsonfineart.com/) but couldn't quite get them where I wanted them - it's impossible to make them look bad anywhere you put them, but being me I got very frustrated with myself.

The first part was easy - placing Autumn Beauty 8 on a windowsill - what could be easier. Yes it's a lot of art without an obvious unifying theme but it's the Sarah Room - I like it that way, at least tonight.

I liked the colors of the sunflower painting in our bedroom, since there is a lot of orange in there (I didn't photograph the whole room because then I would have had to make the bed, but trust me there is orange around), and that top bureau position is a rotating spot anyway - sometimes I have a red roses painting, sometimes yellow roses, now the sunflowers can take a turn.


My next plan was to add one new floral pic on each side of the French doors, which theoretically was a great idea - but after 4 nail holes on the left side, 3 for the 3rd frame and a 4th to try to center the 2nd frame, I realized the frames and styles were not meshing and it would take too many more holes to center what was already there. Two off-center frames look better than 3 off-center frames...there is probably a physics principle to support this. After all those holes I did not want to attempt hanging anything on the right side.

On the left side, in desperation, I switched frames back and forth between 2nd and 3rd position, and even tried a larger painting I only hang at Christmas, Uncle Harvey's 1960s greeting card painting of the lit tree at NY's Rockefeller Center. Reasons for throwing that in the mix were: Christmas is coming, our tree will be in the room with these pictures, and the tree painting's mat matches the top mat on the left side of the French doors (grasping at straws, yes).

Finally I made myself put the hammer & nails away but still went back and forth several times - art on the high table, art on the little round tables, etc. Meanwhile the dogs, who other than having had food thrust down before them an hour before had otherwise been completely ignored - I wasn't talking or humming or anything - were starting to scratch and lick themselves with their own anxiety symptoms. Yes, they sense my moods, which are all the more obvious when Craig is not home. I am a faulty pack leader and that makes them uneasy.

At this point I'm trying to focus on how beautiful the colors are in my new art and how happy I am to have new pieces. Deep breath - in and out. I have wine and Xanax on the premises. It will be OK.