Who here likes tetris? Who here likes well-designed walls? Who here likes pictures?! If you answered yes to any or all of these queries, then I have something exciting for you!
Gallery walls are an interior decorator's bread and butter. They're a great way to occupy wall space, display art that brings in color and personality, and are endlessly versatile. A successful gallery wall is one that feels personally curated to tell a story or mood. In this video, I show you how to style 3 gallery walls for different ages and different styles, using a blend of personal and professional photos, text, and graphics. Check it out above, and read below for some pro tips on assembling your wonder wall!
Pro Tips:
- Lay out your unfilled frames on the floor and decide on the arrangement you'd like. Snap a pic of this and upload to your computer so you can test out different photos in different frames digitally!
- To avoid having your gallery wall look like Instagram feed, with a crowd of faces distracting from the story, fill some frames with abstract images like a watercolor painting or some text art. You can make these yourself, find them on a stock photo website, or even check out this Pinterest board of my handwritten quotes for a cute touch!
- In order to hang your cluster of frames exactly how you arranged them on the floor, place that arrangement on a large piece of paper, trace around each frame, and cut the entire shape out. Measure down on the back of the frames to figure out where the nail would need to be for the hook, then draw that on the paper. Tape the paper onto the wall where you would like the gallery to be, and nail through where you marked! No guesswork needed here.
- When you're hanging frames without any space between them, like in this arrangement, start with the bottom frames first!
Pro Tips:
- You don't need to have personal photos in a gallery wall! Images that represent things you enjoy or find important, or even just like the color/ texture/ vibe of, are all equally as good choices to use in a gallery wall. You're the one looking at it, so choose the images you'll want to see!
- Three photos do a gallery wall make. You don't need to hang 5-7 frames in order to achieve the well-designed, well-balanced look. But if you are going to hang photos like this, in a horizontal line, it's best to choose odd numbers, since they are more aesthetically appealing.
- Not every gallery wall has to be a mathematical affair! I hung these with just my eyes (and a friend) for judgement, and used my hand to measure the space between each frame. It may not be as geometrically pristine as the first arrangement, but as long as the tops of the images pretty much line up and it looks good to you, it's perfect!
Pro Tips:
- When you're designing a gallery wall for a kid's room, try to complement any images of them with more general pictures of things they like that will age well with them. That way, when they're a few years older, you can just swap out the photo of them and not have to reconfigure the whole wall!
- When you have a great close-up shot, like the one of Ethan in this gallery wall, take cues from the subject's clothing to find other colors to incorporate in the other images.
- Another great trick for figuring out how you'd like your frames to be arranged on the wall is to trace them individually on paper (using the nail trick!) and taping up those papers to find the right balance. Once you've got them just how you'd like them, hammer in the nails and voila!
