Home Project - Dining Room Plate Wall

I've had my mind set on doing a plate wall in my dining room for quite a while now. I've seen all kinds of incredible pictures around the internet of really beautiful plate walls. Some are all similar plates. Some are an eclectic mix of plates of different colors, sizes and shapes. Some are meticulously arranged and other are in a haphazard pattern. I love them all! Check out some of these inspiration pictures.

Don't you just love this idea?! Me too!

So a few months ago, I started looking for plates for my dining room wall. My dining room is painted a bright apple green color, with cherry wood accents and natural elements. We currently have an ugly gold chandelier, which we plan on replacing eventually, but for now it stays. I wanted a mix-match look of all different sizes and shapes and color, but all complementary of each other and the room. I started buying plates off ebay, from etsy, at antique shops and home good stores. I figured I would need about 15-20 plates. And here they are:

Most of the plates I bought were between $5-15. Some were a little more because of shipping charges, but all in all, I didn't spend much on them at all. I bought mostly greens, whites, browns and yellows. Somewhere along the way I developed a flower/daisy obsession and have a few that almost even match.

This is the wall in my dining room where I wanted to do the plate collage. Pretty plain and boring...

Step 1 was to cut out paper the size of each plate. I numbered each cut out and then stuck a correspondingly numbered post-it on each plate. Step 2, once I had all the plates numbered, I could lay them all out on the floor to determine how I wanted to arrange them. Here's what I came up with.

Step 3, arrange the paper cutouts on the wall to determine spacing and get an idea as to where you'll hammer in the nails.

Step 4 is to attach plate hangers to each of the plates. I had to buy 3 different sizes of hangers for all the plates. They came in sizes 6-8 inch, 8-10 inch, and 10-15 inch. They have springs on the back to stretch to fit each plate and plastic covered tips, so they won't chip the edges. I think you can buy these at hardware stores like Home Depot, but I found them really cheap at a local antique/consignment shop. They were about $1.50-$2.25 per hanger.

Step 5 was to hammer in the nails and hooks. I nailed them directly into the paper cut-outs. That way I could remember which plate went where without having to hang them and keep nailing (which might cause them to fall off the hanger). And then I removed the paper afterwards.

Step 6, hang your plates! And enjoy!

I think it really brightened up the space. However, I'm not convinced that I really like that large brown and green plate. Too dark? Too big? Or is it a good contrast to match the wood furniture? What do you think?