Are you looking to make a gallery wall in your home? First off, welcome to 2016.
No, just kidding, gallery walls never go out of style. The whole idea of gallery walls has been around forever, they just surged in popularity over the past decade, with many tutorials, ideas, and inspiration to create your own personalized wall art ensemble.
So without further ado, here is ….
source @cestedesign
First, you are going to compile a set of art and objects that you actually want to look at every day, many times. This goes without saying, but it also means you don't want to just run out and buy a bunch of random art and throw it up on your walls and call it a day.
The very best gallery walls include a mix of carefully curated pieces that come together to create a cohesive whole. It's almost like you've created a big old piece of art out of smaller pieces. An art mosaic, if you will!
Don't let this stress you out; I'm not saying you have to spend a year choosing the very best art. I'm just imploring you not to run to Target and grab 6 matching framed prints to fill your dining room wall. If you want an easy head start with your gallery wall, you'll love my collection of cool art prints.
This is where it gets fun! Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. Your gallery wall can be made up of anything you like. My in-laws had an entire basement wall filled with objects from their travels. It made for some fun conversations!
The sky is the limit when planning your gallery wall, and here are just a few ideas to get you thinking:
If you want to go basic, a collection of 5-7 framed pieces is an easy way to get started, and shouldn't be too overwhelming.
Common areas for gallery walls are above your sofa, dining table, or a hall table, one big blank bedroom wall, or a stairway. Really any place you want to can work.
I've seen gallery walls in bathrooms, but just be sure to not overwhelm a small bathroom. Be aware of how much humidity is going on in there before you subject any precious pieces to that.
I love gallery walls above a large, rectangular piece like a sofa or credenza to balance it all out.
Maybe you already intuited this, but a great place to plan out your gallery wall is all over the floor. If you're like me, you'll leave your art on the floor for 3 days, forcing people to land-mine-step around them. It's fun!
First decide if you want your gallery wall to be contained within an even border, or let it be free-flowing and irregular. Even if the outside of it is contained within a rectangle shape, the art pieces inside don't need to line up like a grid; you can arrange them in any way you like.
Starting off with an irregular smattering of art will allow you to add to it over time - it ends up being a living art wall, as you swap in and out different pieces of art!
Of course, arranging your pieces will be somewhat intuitive. Look at them as you play around and take this into consideration:
Meaning, don't cluster up a whole bunch of small pieces together. Make sure the pieces are spread out throughout your gallery by size so the whole thing looks balanced.
Just like with size, you want to make sure the colors of frames are not all clumped together. If you are using different colors of frames, you don't want all the white frames on one side, and darker frames on the other. (Ooh! Unless you are going for a frame-ombre-effect, which might look cool.)
If you include objects or unframed pieces in your gallery wall, make sure they are incorporated evenly throughout the wall. You might be adding these in last, but you don't want them to look like they were an afterthought.
Essentially, the easiest way to start planning your gallery wall is to gather your pieces, and place the largest pieces down first. As you are doing this, leave chunks of space to fill in with the smaller pieces.
Next, add in the smaller pieces, saving any tiny objects or artworks for last. Think of this process as a puzzle, and it will be much more fun - just slide pieces around until you have a good fit.
Tip: I have seen somewhere to trace all of your artworks onto removable contact paper, and cut each piece out. Then you can play around with the placement and spacing right on your wall!
If you get stuck...
If you get frustrated and feel like stomping all of your art to dust, walk away for an hour (or the rest of the day). Revisit it when your brain isn't weary. Also consider removing something if you are having trouble fitting in that particular piece.
2–4 inches between each piece of art is usually perfect for spacing. If are arranging GIANT art pieces, you will want to give the pieces more space accordingly.
You may be tempted to not take your art out too far, but floor-to-ceiling gallery walls can look really cool.
Example: This inspired stairway, which is big and open enough, and balanced by the wall in front of it, to handle floor to ceiling art all crammed together. I think the fact that it is hung with a tidy border helps.
If this is your first attempt at a gallery wall, do yourself a favor and cap it at 6 or 7 pieces.
Do more if you are dead set on making a bigger gallery wall; I don't want to be the one to dash your dreams of gallery wall greatness.
However! Starting small will give you time to live with the art you've hung and move stuff around if you want. This is a great time to invest in many of those 3M removable art-hanging things.
Even just 3 great pieces, hung carefully, can make a gorgeous gallery wall.
LOL, no. Silly puddinhead. They can if you want a streamlined look, but I love how a bunch of different frames look together. This matched gallery wall looks great! And so does this mismatched gallery!
I like to start with the piece that is the most in the center, and work out from there. You can also work up from the bottom if you are hanging your art above a sofa or other furniture.
Definitely use your level as you go. When it comes to actually hanging the pieces, I just would not use nails or screws. There is little in this world as annoying as crooked artwork, and you can be sure to lose your damn mind if you are straightening 20 pieces of artwork every day.
The easiest way to keep the pieces straight is to, again, use the sticky 3M Command strips. I've also used white sticky tack at the bottom of artwork to keep it straight. But this pushes the bottom of the art out from the wall. Make sure you compensate for this at the top by adding a bit of the sticky tack up there.
You can also hang a piece with 2 nails holding each piece. This can be super tricky to hang them at the same height!
Tip: Before actually hanging any art, make sure you have measured and leveled your wall - it helps to lay out some (leveled) horizontal lines of painters tape on the wall in a few areas where you will be hanging your art.
A big bonus of using floor to ceiling shelves as your gallery wall - besides the fact that it looks awesome - is that you don't have to worry about leveling all the pieces!
I am passionate about finding cool vintage images and turning them into art prints (and also creating my own wall art) - so scour my shop for a fantastic mix of wall art options for your next gallery wall.
No, just don't overdo it. Unless you live in an actual gallery, I would suggest limiting the number of gallery walls you have. You don't want to break out in panic attacks due to visual clutter.
