Gallery walls with fine art photography prints are becoming more and more popular these days. A gallery wall with your favorite pictures is a great way to create that one of a kind look that will become the focus point of your home. However, with the abundance of photos and frames available, designing your own gallery wall can seem overwhelming at first. This step by step guide will help you through the process of designing your very own unique photo gallery wall fast and easy.
1. Where do you want to put your gallery wall?
First things first: decide where you want to put your gallery wall in your home. Ideally the space is large enough that you can hang the pictures with enough room around them so that it won’t look too cramped. Pictures in a gallery wall should be at least 50 mm (2 inches) apart. Popular places are above the sofa in the living room, on a wall in the dining room, above the bed in the master bedroom or in the stairway. Once you found the right space for your gallery wall, write down the measurements of the wall space.
2. Choose the gallery layout!
Before choosing the frames and the photos you should first decide on the basic gallery layout in which you want to hang your prints. The possibilities to style a gallery wall are endless. You can find some of my favorite layouts on my Pinterest board “How to Present Wall Art”. I always find it helpful to draw a mockup of the wall space on a piece of paper and cut out some placeholders for the frames from another piece of paper. That way you can play around with different layouts and sizes. Of course everything has to be drawn to scale, obviously. For example, using a 1:10 scale the mockup for a wall measuring 2x2,5 meters would be 20x25 centimeters. The placeholder for a 70x50 centimeters frame would then be 7x5 centimeters. (US measurements: for a 8x8 feet wall space the wall mockup would be 9,6x9,6 inches, the mockup for a 30x20 inches frame would be 3x2 inches).
3. What style is your home decor?
You should always aim to find wall art that complements your home decor rather than hanging pictures that won’t match at all. For example, a print of the New York City skyline will look great in an industrial style home, but will look very out of place in a country style cottage. Vice versa, a landscape print will be a wonderful addition to your country style home decor.
4. Choose the frames!
Once you’ve chosen a layout, do some market research to find the perfect frames. Ideally, the frames should complement your interior design (see step 3). You can find a large selection of frames at affordable prices at IKEA. You can either mix and match different types and colors of frames for a more eclectic look or choose one single frame design in different sizes. If your home decor is country style, wooden frames will go great with your interior. For a more modern look choose a metal frame.
5. Choose the photos!
Finally! The moment you’ve been waiting for! You’ve done your homework and can now move on to the most enjoyable step about creating a gallery wall: choosing the photos. In my blog post “How to Choose Wall Art for Your Home” you will find some basic tips on how to find the perfect photographs for your space. Whether you go for travel prints of your favorite holiday destination, peaceful landscape prints, impressive coastal wall art or floral wall art prints, the possibilities are endless. Choose photos that resonate with you. After all, your gallery wall should be an expression of your personality.
6. Get your pictures up on the wall!
The final step is to hang all your lovely framed prints up on the wall. With the layout you chose in step 3 in mind now would be the time to get your measuring tape and level out to make sure everything is in the right spot and leveled. Nothing will look worse than a lopsided gallery wall, believe me. If you live in a rented place, make sure you check with your landlord if it’s ok to put nails in the wall.
Creating a photo gallery wall might seem like too much of a hassle at first. But in the end you will find that it is totally worth it as you will have your own unique gallery wall that nobody else has. If you don’t want to go through the process of designing your own gallery wall, you can also choose to buy curated gallery wall art sets.
PS: I am not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned in this post and will not benefit in any way if you purchase goods there.