Best Tips for Creating A Gallery Wall
In the Press!
Recently, one of my projects was shared in Washingonian magazine. I was so excited to see it in print! I worked with a client in Northern Virginia to transform an unused guest bedroom into a sleek, focused, mid-century modern workspace for two (if you are interested in the design process and a “before” photo of this project, check out my blog post here). Only one corner of our beautiful room design made it into the magazine, but I’ll take what I can get! This cozy corner happens to be a great example of how I draw so much of my design vision from my clients, letting their energy lead the way in terms of a room’s direction.
While a gallery wall wouldn’t have been the first thing that came to mind for me, my clients had been using them throughout their homes well before this makeover and really love them. This gallery wall was crafted using etchings and photos they’d collected throughout their travels and antiquing jaunts. Not a bad way to stay inspired and motivated while working in your office! I think it turned out great -- it ended up in a magazine, after all -- my clients are my biggest source of inspiration!
What Exactly is a Gallery Wall?
For me, a gallery wall is a collection that tells a story. Collections are what art gallery exhibitions are all about and they take you on a journey. The journey of a life, an art form, a culture or a place. Finalizing artwork in a room is like putting the bow on a present you’ve wrapped: the final touch that brings everything together. While furniture and layout can indicate a theme, the art pieces set the tone of a room. If you’re someone who loves every single photo or piece of art that you own, but (alas!) your walls are finite, then gallery walls are a great solution for your space.
Source here.
Gallery walls create a cozy, homey atmosphere that tell a lot about the person or family who lives there. Whether it’s a gallery of photographs of family and friends, framed pieces collected from across the world, or some of that prized art that your young kids, grand kids, nephews, nieces, what-have-you, created, gallery walls communicate that story.
A favorite client’s family-focused gallery wall.
We all have inherited old family photos and, of course, everyone today has hundreds of digital photos of family and friends. Pulling out your favorites to frame and exhibit is a great way to get that visual history out of the closet and on display.
I love this collage of old family photos in sepia tones on a rusted, corrugated board held together with magnets. Source.
What is “Art”? The beauty of a gallery wall is that it can be any collection of items meaningful to you and, obviously, any piece that can be hung or positioned on a wall!
My gallery wall at our North Carolina beach house. The water bird theme is perfect for a coastal home.
This gallery wall’s main theme seems to be all things dry: dried flowers, old skulls, cacti -- I wonder if the owner did this themselves or collected antiques? The desert-y vibes are pretty warm and friendly here! Source.
Inspiration from Clients
The mid-century modern office redesign featured in the Washingtonian was for my Alexandria, Virginia clients, Stephen and Mike. They are world travelers and collectors, collecting etchings and paintings and instead of letting them collect dust, they love to proudly and very thoughtfully display them throughout their homes. The perfect solution for an expansive art collection: the gallery wall!
Here is another view of this very “collected” home office space for Stephen and Mike. Source: Angela Newton Roy Photography
Stephen is the mastermind behind this featured gallery wall, so I reached out to see if he’d like to share some insights on what it takes to create these walls in their homes.
He was kind enough to share some of his thoughts. The amount of artwork he wanted to display requires a very thoughtful and detailed approach. This kind of task is for us detailed-oriented humans, not the big-picture guys! In Stephen’s own words “As you can imagine, a lot of planning goes into [a gallery wall].”
He shares his very own process (I love fellow graph paper geeks!) here:
1. Measure the walls - plot on graph paper
2. Measure the pictures - plot on graph paper; cut out.
3. Take photos of all the pictures. I took them from the same vantage point so the approximate size is the same. Attach to the graph paper squares. The size won’t be the same; the goal is to have an idea of which images should hang together; the graph paper squares tell you what will fit.”
This is a great approach to begin any design project -- physically recreating it in a manageable way so that you can actually see how everything hangs (pun intended!) together before committing.
Any design is only as good as the sum of its parts. Planning is key to any design program. As an Interior Designer, I use a number of tools on any given job: from fabric and finish samples to 3D computer modeling -- it all works together to bring a design to life. Biggest takeaway here: assess what you have and start putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
This well-planned gallery wall by designer Katie Ridder has a balanced rhythm and symmetry to it.
These family photos in red and black frames look collected over time. It looks like the family made sure the subjects stayed within the red-black-blue color range to help hold this gallery wall together. Source.
More context on his design process from Stephen:
“It’s helpful to outline the edge of each square so you have a better sense of how it fills the space and is not just graph paper lying on graph paper with the photos floating. With each wall, I took the largest piece I selected for that wall to use as an ‘anchor,’ then arranged from there, with the largest pieces being placed first … You want to create a rhythm both in the case of the frames and matting, but also taking into consideration the direction the figures face (in the case of the portraits). You don’t want a group with all facing to the left, for example.”
This is a great example of using several different kinds of pieces for one wall. I love the circular mirror as the anchor piece in this design, surrounded by square and rectangular frames of all different sizes. Source here. Interior Design: Margaret Kirkland Interiors
I couldn’t have said it better myself, Stephen! Taking a few days to work with the “paper wall” to arrange and rearrange is the best way to approach a puzzle like this. And in the words of the Barefoot Contessa, during this COVID staycation, “you’ve got lots of time, it’s not a problem.” (If you haven’t seen her now-classic COVID cosmo video check it out here.)
“The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts”
Gallery walls look really great at first glance as a composition, with each piece working together to create “one” installation. At the same time, you can view a grouping closely and spend a few minutes looking at each piece and get to know them individually. It really is the epitome of the parts creating the whole!
Stephen also created gallery walls at Annefield, their plantation house in Saxe, Virginia.
“One thing I really like about this arrangement is that even though the images are extremely detailed, you can study them … as you go up and down the stairs. Just like with the office [gallery wall], the largest images were placed first. I had to buy a special ladder designed to use on stairs! Placement was dictated primarily by size, then by color.” -Stephen B.
I really like Stephen’s many gallery walls, but this one catches my eye as it “flows” down (or up!) the staircase with you.
Fred Gonsowski, creates some of the best drawings illustrating whatever design topic is the subject of his narrative. Check out some of his sketches in this blog post about how to hang pictures on a staircase -- according to him, Stephen did a great job!
Building a Gallery Wall
There is a lot to consider when building your gallery wall at home, so I’ve outlined some of the basic structures in the rest of this post. This is a great place to start if you’re thinking about building your own gallery wall at home!
Tips for Arranging Your Collections
Unless you have a highly visual mind, it can be difficult to look at a wall and imagine all of the various pieces you’ve selected fitting together in a polished, stylish way. That’s why Stephen’s tip to use graph paper and minis of the photos you want to use is so great.
I’ve also found Pinterest is a great resource to find graphics for reference.
This graphic from Galerie Scienne does a great job illustrating Stephen’s tip about finding that “anchor” piece. In each example, there is one or two larger pieces that dictate how much space is left on the wall. When all the frames are the same size, it falls into a gallery wall in a classic format
Carole Talbott, in Decorating for Good, has some great ideas for getting started with a gallery wall:
● Remember to group like-shapes. Circles go with circles and squares go with squares.
● A huge tip: imagine the shape that you want the whole gallery wall to be and outline the shape and then fill in using your art pieces. For example:
Envision walls as geometric shapes. Source.
Starting at the outside of the imagined shape and then filling in as pieces fit is Carole’s optimal way for creating a gallery wall.
Carole’s framework method combined with Stephen’s method of graph paper and creating a mini version is a great way to break down what might be a big project.
Tips for Building a Theme
While the layout is important on one wall (or a corner!), it’s also important that the content is related. There are several different ways to create groupings with the pieces you already have. Knowing the content’s theme might also help dictate where to put a gallery wall and what kinds of frames to purchase, if any.
Grouping pieces by subject is a great way to piece together your gallery wall. Perhaps it’s all the pieces from one specific trip, or an area of the world that you visit frequently. Maybe it’s a grouping not even from traveling, but photos of family and friends, art that others have gifted you, or even art created by family and friends -- these groupings are all great ways to bring color and visual interest to a room. If you have a few pieces of art that you always “put together” anyways, then there is already a story there. Use the gallery wall as a place to tell that story at a larger scale!
I love how all the differences in this art collection still create a unified and interesting gallery wall. Source
If you have a blank wall as your canvas, start thinking about what you like to collect. What are you looking for when you are shopping on your travels, browsing antique stores, or searching the internet? Art galleries build collections over time and I am sure you have a soft spot for some object or art piece that you can’t pass up when you come across it.
For example, I went on The Fan District Holiday House Tour here in Richmond a few years ago and I loved this collection of crosses in one of the homes.
Corner gallery wall of a family’s collection of crosses.
If you’re anything like this homeowner in Richmond, you love to shop while you’re traveling -- collecting unique pieces of clothing, furniture, or art as mementos from that trip. I, myself find that no matter where I go in the world I am always collecting cow paintings and drawings!
My cow paintings are spread around my office now, but there’s always room for one more cow and these two from trips to Scotland and Ireland are ready for company once we can explore the world again post-COVID.
If you love the thought of creating a gallery wall but dread the process, you can cheat like I did in my laundry room. I love this wallpaper called (of course) “bird gallery.” These detailed paintings of many types of birds, plants, and butterflies together create the same effect as a gallery wall with real frames and paintings! It makes me happy every time I step in here (even if it is to do the neverending loads of laundry).
Tips for Thinking Outside The Frame
A gallery wall doesn’t have to be a series of photos or paintings; even three dimensional objects you collect make an interesting and personal gallery wall. Just like that collection of crosses! Your collection of thimbles could be put into shadow boxes; tapestries can be hung with plates. If you collect textiles, or antique clothing, consider getting them framed and creating a gallery wall with those. Repetition is a wonderful design technique. Whether it’s a gallery wall of black and white photographs, watercolor paintings, etchings, or various antique maps, any grouping held together by a common thread unites different styles and creates a consistent, collected look, no matter the subject.
Here are a few examples of “unconventional” gallery walls made from many different types of art:
All things Scottish-designed is the theme of this life-size curiosity box gallery wall. I took this photo a few years ago on a trip to Scotland when we visited the V & A Museum in Dundee. Check out my blog post about this amazing museum here -- definitely worth the trip once we are able to travel again!
I love this gallery wall by Richmonder Jamie Coffey using his vintage frames to display his winter hats and scarves as art. As you are starting to see, a staircase is a favorite spot to create a gallery wall. Source.
How much planning went into this collection of antique books, letters,etc?! Source.
Three-dimensional pieces or sculptures, metal letters, shadow boxes, unique lighting, low-maintenance plants (like succulents), or other textural pieces would look great on a gallery wall created using shelving or ledges.
This gallery wall created in the Thibaut showroom at High Point Market is a great illustration of a three dimensional gallery wall using individual display shelves.
Brooke Shields’ gallery wall of photographic art--how many of you have been photographed by Annie Leibovitz? Definitely something to show off! Photographer: William Waldron
Leaning photos against the wall instead of hanging them, and adding some 3D pieces, adds depth and complexity to your gallery wall. Source here.
Ernie and I traveled to Chile, South America a few years ago and I loved this cute restaurant in Puerto Varas in the Chilean Lake District. The gallery walls of plates and fans added such a festive and homey touch on the wood panelled walls.
Sources to Start Building
Gallery walls have been sticking around, and Framebridge noticed! They’ve created an entire business around this decorating technique. While they do sell individual frames, they offer an entire gallery wall section of their shop and they even tout their own gallery wall consultations!
Example of a gallery wall created with Framebridge. Source.
And as I mentioned, Pinterest is also a great resource for many gallery wall questions. Whether it be inspiration photos, design tips, and tricks, or reference graphics for how to appropriately arrange all of your differently sized objects, Pinterest probably has an inspiration image or graphic.
Let’s Get Started
Even though we’ve all been living our lives in 2020 pretty much completely virtually, the New Yorker still has hope for gallery walls with photos from this year -- LOL!
If your brain is already churning with ideas about the pieces that you have in your home already and how you can put them together to create your own gallery wall, let’s chat! I’ve loved learning more about this technique and the processes behind it and already have a few ideas for how to incorporate them into current and future projects.
Reach out to me via my contact page if you’re ready to start designing with me!
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