unconventional map love

At my first estate sale we picked up a bunch of fun things. Since then, I've been daydreaming about getting those maps up in the dining room. When we removed the floating shelves that were in there, they left gaping wall anchor holes. We had to fill them and then {since we didn't have any of the paint to match the existing color} we ran out to grab some oops paint, and painted the walls a bright and happy white.

I used to think white was such a boring wall color, but as my taste has grown I've realized I prefer it. Having white walls is like having a blank canvas. Then you can put bright and colorful art up, and there's no competition for your eyes to worry about it. 

Do you know how much it costs to frame three foot pictures? Wayyyy too much money. So, we went unconventional. I mean, really unconventional. First we measured everything, and then we screwed sixteen screws into the wall around the border of where wanted to hang the first map.

That's just the first three screws, but you get the idea. We didn't screw them into the map, we screwed them into the wall. Once all sixteen screws were in, we placed our map up against them and then we grabbed the round heavy duty magnets we had picked up at Lowes (eight magnets for $4). Do you see where we are going?

With the map against the screws, we put a magnet on top of each screw. Then we held our breath, and let go.

It didn't fall off the wall. Huge plus. We let it sit over night. It still looked the same. We let trains go by {we live right next to some very active tracks}. It didn't shimmy off the wall. Success! We still have to hang the other one, and I'm thinking about painted the magnets {brass, yellow, red?}, but I'm all for suggestions. :)