How To Mount And Frame A HUGE Print (My 52″ x 78″ Landscape Design Print), FINISHED!

It was quite a job to mount and frame my huge print of our landscape plan, but it’s finally finished, and I couldn’t be more excited about how it turned out! Here’s a look at the finished 52″ x 78″ mounted and framed print.

At the end of the last post, I had added a very basic frame around the plywood panel, and then attached the print to the panel.

Once the print was mounted to the plywood, I needed to finish the frame. I did this by attaching this trim to cover the edges of the print.

And I attached it just inside the outer frame piece (i.e., the 1″ x 4″ piece that I ripped to 2.5 inches). I cut these pieces to length and mitered the corners, and then attached them using 1.5-inch 18-gauge nails.

And then I added pine pane molding on top of the previous to pieces, lined up so that the outer edge of this pine molding was flush with the outer edge of the 1″ x 2.5″ outer frame piece, and it covered the area where that outside frame piece met the white trim piece

I cut those pieces to length and mitered them on the corners, and then attached them using 1.5-inch 18-gauge nails. Here’s what it looked like when all of the trim had been attached.

After using wood filler on all of the nail holes, and then caulking to fill in those tiny cracks where the different types of trim met each other, I was ready to paint. It made me nervous to put painters tape on the print, so I opted to use printer paper and slide it under the inside trim piece and tape those to each other.

In hindsight, I really think the print would have been perfectly fine if I had used painters tape for delicate surfaces, but at this point, I was already committed to this option. And since printer paper isn’t really thick, I made sure that I used several thin coats of paint on that inside trim piece rather than my standard two thicker coats.

I had narrowed the paint color options down to three Behr paint colors: Hills of Ireland, Belfast, and Blarney Stone. I had to laugh at the obvious theme that emerged. 😀 In the end, I opted for Behr Blarney Stone. It’s reminiscent of the paint color that I used to have on the walls in the back entry of the studio.

Once the frame was finished, I had one more thing I wanted to do. The print was printed on shiny paper. If you scroll back up and look at the pictures again, you can see what I’m talking about. I prefer a matte finish, so I bought two cans of Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch clear matte spray, and I gave the print three coats of spray, which took almost all of the two cans.

And the end result was a gorgeous matte print set off perfectly in a Blarney Stone green frame.

I just love how HUGE this thing is! And I’m so glad I actually had a wall that could accommodate a print this big.

And I’m very happy with how the frame turned out. I’m so glad I took the time to make the plywood panel, and then mount the print to the panel rather than just attaching the print directly to the wall like wallpaper. I don’t think that would have done it justice at all. By making the panel first, and then attaching the print to the panel, it gives it more of a presence, and allowed for a much more substantial frame that really makes the print look and feel like something special.