Service for 18.

A few months ago, my friend Nikki posted this to her blog.

I fell in love.

I actually own a few of the plates shown on that particular wall — they're hanging in my kitchen. And while I love the graphic, happy look of those plates and the collage created by that blogger, I really wanted to create the plate wall in my dining room, and I wanted the collection to be a little more "me."

If only I knew what "me" meant. My taste is hardly definable. I'm a casual person, but I'm attracted to fancy things. I love vintage patterns. I delight in cheerful colors. I admire bold choices. I choose subtle paint colors. I gravitate toward traditional lines. I like, but am somewhat terrified of, modern decor.

I am a complete mixed bag when it comes to style, and my house (and closet) is proof of that.

Luckily, a plate wall can be whatever you want it to be. So instead of mulling over which direction to take it, I just started collecting. For the past two months I've been hitting up every Goodwill, Arc's Value Village, and Savers within a 15 mile radius of home and work. And anything that looked even remotely interesting to me, I bought — with no real plan in mind.

Slowly, a pattern of color and style began to emerge. I chose colors that would fit with my first floor decor - reds, greens, yellows. Some solids, some patterns. A mix of vintage and traditional, with a few oddball additions for good measure. Toward the end, I added in black patterns, thinking that would help ground the collection a bit.

This weekend I decided I had enough to hang. Of the 22 plates I collected, I used 18. I made a pattern on the floor, traced each plate on paper and cut it out, numbered the cutouts and the corresponding plate, and taped the paper up to the wall. I wanted it to have some flow to it, but sadly the wall space wasn't as wide as the floor space I used to create the initial pattern. So I futzed with the layout on the wall, then futzed with it some more as I began to hang.

And then I futzed with it even more after it was hung. An inch over, an inch up, would a different plate look better here or there? (The answer was always yes. And still is, even looking at it now.)

The (probably not yet) final product: 18 plates on my dining room wall. An imperfect arrangement of dishes in varying styles and colors. A piece of original artwork that took weeks of shopping, three hours of hanging, and less than $80 total (including $50 in plate hangers).

I love it. Even though I know it's still not quite right and I already want to change it. But that's the beauty of the plate wall...it's fluid. I can add, I can move, I can replace. All of which I'm sure I'll do in the near future.

It's a perfectionist's dream project, really.