In design school I had a professor who would collect flight safety cards for their novel infographics. They are often hilariously horrible, yet interesting how the artist/designer chose to convey this important emergency information. As I started traveling internationally in 2007, I began collecting my own cards as well. I stopped after I had 14 or 15 from different airlines and plane models.
Over the years, I dreamt about making an ironic bathroom series because I thought it would be amusing for guests to ponder flight safety when they visit our bathroom.
For a long time this was impossible, because Kay refused to drill holes in a rental. Then we spent literally two years discussing and debating how to go about hanging up a series of photos on the wall. This is THE FIRST thing ever hung up in our flat after two years.
Kay’s issue was making too many holes in the wall for whenever we move out eventually. He argued that we should buy a museum-like gallery system, so we could easily hang multiple photos and change them if we like. I finally caved and gave up my multiple-holes-in-the-wall pitch.
I actually bought the frames for my bathroom series in 2013 or 2014, but yes… they sat on my desk for the better part of two years before I could finally start hanging them up. And it was not easy! First I had to buy screws to hang some string in the middle for the photo to hang properly.
After a lot of testing, I decided I would have to hang the frames with the string set in the lower third, because they are so small and light and bulky that they would not lay flat against the wall.
Here is the gallery rail, which mind you, has five screws in it. In case that’s not clear, this is only four screws less than if we hung the photos without this rail system.
…and this was my main problem. Even hanging with the hook set lower, these darn frames just flopped out from the wall. It was infuriating. 
I swore it then and I swear it now, it would have been SO much easier if we just drilled some darn holes in the wall. 
I ended up flipping every frame around and taping black electrical tape around the clear gallery cable to secure the frames. 
But that wasn’t enough… I needed to secure both the top and bottoms, plus secure invisible pieces of plastic on the sides to make sure the frames would stay aligned to one another and not all crooked.
After all this tedious taping was done, the entire taped together grid of nine frames was STILL hanging off the wall, so I doubled up on some double-sided wall mount stuff to really secure those suckers to the wall. 
Yep. It’s a bit ridiculous. Now all nine frames are taped in multiple areas to another, plus these silly pads gluing the whole thing to the wall. Changeable? No fucking way. Don’t you dare touch this now that it is up!
The final result looks really nice, but it took literally hours and a lot of patience… all to save making four additional holes. Gah. That’s compromise folks! 
Still, I do love the gallery now that it’s done. I just do not want to ever touch it again.
Now guests are free to contemplate the safety measures required during a flight emergency as they relieve themselves or freshen up.
And really… it is the first thing up on any of the walls. It’s great to just have something there on those stark white walls that I don’t feel like painting with that annoying-to-paint texture. 🙂
I also could finally spruce up the severely lonely corner in the guest bathroom with a vase from my FIL and some fake plants from IKEA. Now I am not quite so depressed when I look over there from the throne. 
And for the other bathroom, even though it has a window, we have like four layers of curtains for privacy, so I also got a fake orchid from IKEA to brighten up this space as well. It’s actually a little nice not to have to worry about watering or taking care of these plants. 🙂
Do you ever buy fake plants to spruce things up a bit?
While clothes are easy for the boys to let go, it made me sad to go through them. They all still smell like her. I can see why my FIL doesn’t want them around anymore. I saved a bunch of her scarves and now I have a lot of clothes to go through at home.
The hard part was then moving them from the van to the flat, up the lift, and out onto the balcony. Kay was sweating bucket loads by the time we finished.
Almost this whole line of plants were my MIL’s. She had so many! And they are gorgeous.It feels great to fill up the balcony with some pots finally, but I’m sad about the way in which we came about all the plants.
View from the banister below to the courtyard.
 Yup, good purchase here.
 This little corner with the neighbor and my clematis and the climbing roses is just lovely. Also look at that lavender at the left in the box going nuts!
