I love, love love gallery walls. They add so much personalty and visual interest to a room. It’s fun to group pieces my theme, by color, or simply by things that you love. Deciding on how to place items on a wall can be tricky though, and leaving too much guess work can leave a lot of unwanted holes in your wall,–so I thought I’d share how I create gallery walls this little how-to:
HOW TO MAKE A GALLERY WALL
Step 1.0 Pick a Wall.
Step 2.0 Collect Inspiration.
2.1 Snoop around online until you find a few gallery walls that you love.
SOURCES: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3
2.2 Try and figure out what it is about the gallery walls that you like. For example, I liked the look of diverse shapes of frames and art–I wanted to mix round with square, and also add some objects. I also decided that I loved the look of collections of mirrors.
Step 3.0 Gather Items From Your Own Home + Thrift Your Heart Out
3.1 If you are a creative person (and the fact that you’re reading this blog leads me to that conclusion) then chances are you have a lot of drawings, doodles, paintings, cool papers, masks, jewelry, clocks, textiles etc. already in your home. Go around your house a steal pieces that you love for the gallery. Maybe its an old photo that you’ve had in your desk for ages, or perhaps is a doodle that your daughter made, or maybe it’s a musical instrument or a mask? Collect all that stuff onto an open space and lay it all out. Look at all your items and decide on a theme– or decide not to have a theme and just to see which pieces resonate together.
3.2 Once you’ve assembled a whole collection of items, you’ll want to see which pieces need frames, and if anything else is missing. I, for one new I needed some more mirrors for my wall to reflect light in the living room–so I thrifted the right antique mirrors for the space. I also knew I’d need something to hang the guitar with, and some good wall anchors to make sure everything stayed in place.
3.3 Next put the loose art, textile pieces, doodles or postcards into frames. ( I love vintage frames, but if I don’t have time to hunt, I often go to Ikea for a more D-I-BUY option.)
4.0 Make A Model
4.1 If your home is too small or just to crowded to lay the gallery wall items on the floor and arrange them, you can do as I did and make a to-scale model of your wall. To make a scale model use graph paper and measure out the length and height of your wall and the length and height of all of your gallery items. Sketch out your gallery items on the graph paper to scale (I divided the measurements by five and then made one inch equal to one square on the graph paper. I’m not a math person, but this was actually pretty easy and fun.) Once the items were all sketched, I cut it all out. Then a drew a to-scale rectangle on another piece of graph paper to represent the wall.
4.2 Next, arrange and re-arrange your items on your model gallery until you find a compostion that you pleases you. Take picture of the different arrangements along the way as to remember your favorites. You may want to your co-habitors in this process. It’s fun to try and fit all the pieces together. If you like Tetris, you’ll love this.
5.0 Edit, Edit, Edit
5.1 Ever heard the phrase ‘if it don’t fit, don’t force it’ ? Well, this is a good thing to remember while making your wall. If you can’t squeeze in that last item, maybe it’s better to leave it out.
6.0 Let’s hang
6.1 Get a friend or a husband or a wife or someone to help you hang (thanks Jason!) It’s nice to have an extra set of eyes for hanging, if some items are heavy, it’s useful to have four hands. You’ll need a leveler and a drill to get everything up perfectly. If you don’t have a leveler, I’ve noticed that there are leveler apps on the iphone. Also, you may want to have some spackle and paint on hand for emergencies, too.
6.2 Get out your camera and take some pictures of your rad, new gallery wall for your blog. ;-)
shari says
Wow, thank you! I’ve done this kind of thing for rearranging furniture… but I actually never thought to do it for a wall! I’m inspired to do some hanging very soon! I agree that it’s so nice to have mirrors to help open small spaces and to reflect light. I can never have enough cool mirrors!
Your wall looks lovely! I especially like the framed animal drawings!
Will @ Bright.Bazaar says
Two awesome things: 1) Your new header and 2) This post of perfect tips!
Carola says
lovely! great composition!
kiss
Carola
OLD BRAND NEW says
Man oh man, do I love a gallery wall! I usually just pin shit up blindly, so I need to save these great tips. Thanks for sharing and I’m lovin’ the new do!
Justina says
@Shari thank you! The framed animal drawings were done by my boyfriend when he was 5! Theyre totally vintage :P
@will+Carola thank you!!
@Dabito well, even you pin shit up blindly it looks amazing! You just *got it* !!
Anna says
oh nice, Justina! will definitely put this to use when I have all my treasures to hang.
thanks for this!! kind of helps push me along a bit :)
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