Do you have a large format piece of art that you would love to frame? A poster, a map, or even a piece of original art? Have you looked into custom framing, and fell over in shock at how much it costs? My husband had this map for years. We didn't just want to tack it up on the wall; we wanted to frame it. But at 50" x 32", it was larger than any poster frame that I could find at my local art stores. That left either an expensive custom frame or a DIY frame. We chose to DIY our frame, and I couldn't be happier with the result.

We got the idea on how to DIY our map's frame from John at Young House Love. I followed their tutorial fairly closely, so I'm not going to reiterate all the steps, since that blog did it well. I did make some changes, though:

I used 1x2 poplar. The 1x3 pine wasn't as nice as the poplar. And I cut my pieces with a simple hand saw and miter box.

Just like John, we did a butt joint at the corners, but instead of using clamps, we tag teamed it and I held the wood while my husband drilled. We also used pilot holes before we drilled the screws in.

To finish the frames, I used Minwax Rosewood stain, simply because I had it on hand. But it wasn't quite dark enough, so I used some dark wax on top of that. I like that because I was able to give it a soft shine.

Because our artwork had been rolled up for years, we used painters tape to hold it down while I stapled it with a staple gun. Then I mounted picture wire to the back with D-rings.

I love how we finally have this map up, and we only spent around $15 dollars to do it!