making art work for you

Creating a Gallery Wall

With the new autumn season approaching, we decided to embrace some change and rehang the original art pieces in our art gallery.  There’s something about transitioning to fall that invites fresh and new beginnings, and changing up your interior spaces is a great way to embrace this season.  So as design styles and home decor change with the leaves, deciding exactly how you want to rearrange or redecorate can be tricky.  Sometimes reorganizing wall decor you already have, finding new ways to display items in your home, or switching out different pieces can instantly refresh your room and get you ready for crisp weather & cozy days inside.

A gallery wall–although it can sound daunting–is a great way to display your wall decor pieces, fill a blank wall, and personalize your space.  If you already have a gallery-styled wall, switching out pieces, adding new ones, or reorganizing them can help re-energize your space.  So whether you are attempting your first gallery wall or rehanging what you already have, we wanted to share some helpful tips and tricks that we learned when switching up our own art gallery walls recently.

Style

The first thing to decide on is how the style of your gallery wall; what “theme” or aesthetic are you going for?  Classic and traditional?  Or a more eclectic vibe? Since there are so many ways to create a gallery wall, pinpointing your style that will help when picking out the specific pieces to use and organizing them.  For our art gallery, we decided to rehang each wall by color palette and used pieces in similar tones.  Color is a key component of making any gallery wall cohesive.  Whether the pieces are all black and white, all in the same color scheme, or an intentional mix of colors, it’s important think about how the colors in your pieces will look together on your wall and in your space.

Finding the pieces

Once you have an overall idea of the style you want for your gallery wall, it’s time to pick your pieces.  An easy way to start is to choose some main pieces–they tend to be the larger ones–that you want to be the focal points of your wall, and then you can build around them.  No matter if you are rehanging pieces you already have or finding new pieces, this can help give you a specific direction and a better idea of how to organize the space you have available.  Once you have the main pieces, you can find others to go with them and start creating a collection of possible images and works for your gallery.  At this point in our gallery, we started gathering the pieces that worked with the color palette of our wall and pairing them up based on aesthetic–not worrying about sizes quite yet.  This is the fun part, so use your unique eye and style to find the perfect pieces to fit your vision!

Lay It Out

After you have the pieces that you want to include in your gallery wall, begin planning out how you want to organize them.  Figure out how much wall space you want/have to work, measure out the sizes of the pieces (it can be helpful to start with the larger ones) and start mapping our how you want to place them.  Consider which sized pieces work best together, spacing out like-images so similar items aren’t clumped together, and the amount of space you want to leave between each piece.  Make it as clean & gridded or as intentionally disordered as you would like, but laying it out and having a game plan will really help before grabbing the nails and hammer.  For our art gallery, we kept a consistent bottom line for our art pieces and worked up, making sure pieces were centered with the ones below and evenly spaced.  Don’t be afraid to try different things and experiment with various lay outs before finding what works best for your space!

One big tip about creating a gallery wall–no matter how you go about curating and hanging it–is to stay flexible and don’t be afraid to adapt if things aren’t going exactly how you envisioned.  Whether you are creating a new gallery wall and on the hunt for the perfect pieces or reimagining your space with pieces you already have, enjoy getting creative with it!  The hard work, creativity, and personal touches will be really rewarding once you stand back and admire your work!

All of these original pieces (and more!) are available on our website!

2 thoughts on “Creating a Gallery Wall

  1. A gallery wall doesn’t have to be static; like all things in life, it can evolve and change over time. You can add more canvas prints, framed prints or other items to expand the gallery wall, or even switch out old pieces for new ones. The only limit is your imagination.

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