Fly-by-Wire Gallery

By Derek Powazek

18 Mar 2007

For a couple of photographers, Heather and I sure were lax about hanging prints in the house. We looked around at our walls and saw prints we made in college, which was the last time we bothered to frame anything. There were millions of images sitting on our hard drives and a decent color printer in the office, waiting to be used. All we needed was a way to conveniently hang them. And that's when we came up with the idea for the Fly-by-Wire Gallery.

What you'll need:

A stud-finder (not a euphemism)
Two eye hooks (2-3" long)
A bubble level
Framing wire and wire cutters
A dozen binder clips
String, a screwdriver, pliers, gloves

Step 1 Locate a wall somewhere in your house that you'd like to use. Make sure there's a good amount of horizontal space and the light is good.

Step 2 Find them studs! Use the stud-finder to find where the studs are in the wall. Locate one on each side of the wall, and mark them with pencil.

Step 3 Screw an eye hook into the left stud. Make sure you get all the way through to the stud, because we're going to be putting a lot of pressure on this thing. I prefer to put the wire about eye-level, but your tastes may vary. Also, in our house, the wall is made of a very flaky plaster, so to avoid crumbling, I primed the hole using a small drill. Then screwing the eye hook in was easy: I used a screwdriver for leverage.

Step 4 Level it! To find the placement of the second eye hook, run a string from the hook you just placed to where you think the other one will go. Then hang the bubble-level in the middle of the string, and move the other side up and down until you find the place where it's absolutely level. (This is especially important in San Francisco where, after a hundred years of earthquakes, you can't count on the floor to be level.)

Step 5 Screw the eye hook into the right stud in the spot you identified. Now you can remove the string from the first hook.

Step 6 Insert the framing wire into one side and twist the remaining wire around until it's tight (a pair of gloves will save your fingers). Now you just have to do the same thing on the opposite side while pulling the wire as taught as possible. To do this in our house, I grabbed the wire with a pair of pliers and pulled hard while Heather threaded it through the hook and wound it tight. Clip off any excess wire.

Step 7 Now all you have to do is grab a few of your favorite prints and clip them to the wire with the binder clips. Prints on thick paper work best, as they're sturdier. If your prints buckle, just use more clips! If your line sags, use fewer prints or try stringing it up tighter.

The result us a classy display system that's endlessly configurable. It's super-easy to change your in-house gallery show. Just take one photo out, slide the rest around on the wire, and add as needed!

For extra credit, hang two or three wires on one wall, or break up one photograph into multiple prints. Or have a gallery party and invite friends to bring prints to hang.

Heather and I set our Fly-by-Wire Gallery up a few years ago, and it's been very durable. All it needs is a little dusting every once in a while. And the best part is, there's always someplace to put our most recent favorite print.

4 responses

Ana De La Garza said (2 Jul 2009):
OMG... i am totally going to do this. maybe put a couple of them on one wall. I have a baby and i have too many pics to frame them all. thanks.
Chante Tenoso gave props (24 Sep 2009):
What a great idea!
Marisa Pellerin gave props (1 Jun 2010):
i've always wanted to do this but keep slacking on the idea
Robert Vega gave props (18 Aug 2010):
will be trying this