This past week I finally finished installing my gallery wall in the living room. It's probably taken me over three months to complete this wall, from collecting all the art, to buying all the frames, framing everything and then hanging it all up. It was such a fun project, and I LOVE how it turned out!I have always loved the look of large gallery walls in friend's homes, and I was very excited about the idea of creating one that fit my aesthetic. I had a lot of fun installing this project, and here are a few tips I learned along the way:
1. Choose Art You Love. If you are planning to hang a gallery wall in your home, don't feel like you have to make it look like anyone else's. You can include original art, art prints, kiddo art, family photos, personal photo projects or even found objects that get framed in shadow boxes (if needed). Hang what you love and what has meaning to you. If it helps you to get started with your color scheme, then pick your color story before you start purchasing art or printing photos. You can use the color of the photo frames to help tie everything together if needed (like how I used all black frames).2. Get Creative With Matting Art. For a few of my frames I knew I wanted to fill them with groups of four Polaroid pictures. All these Polaroids are from trips I took while I was in college. I have polaroids of Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower and Platform 9 3/4 (I'm a big Harry Potter fan!). These groupings presented a challenging matting situation. My (inexpensive) solution was to use white poster board to fill the frame and adhere the Polaroids to the poster board. Thicker paper would work well here too, depending on the depth of your frame.
3. Plan Out the Frame Placement. This is super obvious but an easy step to skip if you're feeling lazy. There have definitely been times over the years I decided to hang things without planning the placement first, and it almost always results in extra holes in the wall and extra work. No good! There are a couple of options for planning your framed art placement. I chose to cut the shapes of each frame out of poster board and tape them to the wall. This made it easy for me to move the shapes around to find the perfect arrangement before we began hanging them. But don't think you have to stick to your plan exactly. Once you start putting the actual frames on the wall, you might want to shift a few things around. I definitely did! But it was nice to have a guide so I knew the general layout I was shooting for. Can't break the rules until you know the rules, right?If you're curious about some of the pieces on my wall, here's the low down. I have personal photos and Polaroids, a pug portrait made by Hope (Katie's sweet daughter), prints from UO, Pretty Little Thieves, Clare Elsaesser, Lisa Congdon, Vivienne Strauss, Hands Workshop, Ashley Goldberg and United Thread. What kinds of art/photos do you have hanging in your home? xo. Emma
i really like this!
Hi y’all!
Emma’s couch is from Macy’s!
Where is your couch from?! I love it!
I love this! It looks great…I also love your side tables 🙂 What color are your walls? Are they a dark purple or black? It’s the color I’m currently trying to convince my bf to let us paint our living room!
Thanks!
I love this… Emma, can you please share what the paint colour is and where the sofa is from? Also… please do a tour of your house soon! 🙂
Thanks for this post as I am in the process of redecorating my home and had it sketched out to do a wall like this but wasn’t sure exactly how I should place the photos.
Thanks!
It turned out great! I actually did mine the opposite! I started with one piece, and have added them gradually as I find the art.
Sarah
www.etsy.com/shop/owleyevintage
In the process of doing this in my bedroom – great tip about the paper to plan the placement! Thanks!!
Love the Black Wall!!!!!
I love Urban Outfitters prints and, of course, Etsy art, and I love how you mixed it with personal photos and kid’s drawings. Such a lovely, and eclectic mix. I don’t really have a big enough place on my wall for a gallery right now, but I’ve been planning one in my mind for a while, and can’t wait!
this is perfect timing for me! we’ve been trying to decide on a gallery arrangement over our mantle for months!! thanks for sharing!
Going to use this method for my new place, also Rachel’s tutorial on the 57″ rule was so helpful
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Thanks again for being awesome!
what is the wall color in this post? It’s beautiful
This would fit very well into my living room ! Also adore your sense of putting the right pieces together. I’ll start right now to collect art pieces and photos!
Greetings from Germany
http://www.i-wear-my-own.de/
What wall color / paint brand is this dark grey ?
Beautiful gallery wall. But I can’t get over the side tables. Where did you get them?
You did a wonderful job. I really like the artwork – it is beautifully mismatched and I imagine a perfect representation of what you love. I was hesitating for so long about our wall and trying to make sure it all ‘went together’, but I think I’m going to get a little bit more creative and just think about the things that are really important to me – my favourites – and see how they start looking all together.
Can you tell me where you got the phases of the moon print. It’s awesome and beautiful all at the same time.
Love it!
http://fashionbrunette.blogspot.com
I like this =)