Stephanie Hayward

how to hang a gallery wall

So remember way back when I was going to do that whole living room project? Yeah, well, most of that kind of fizzled out into vapor, but I recently actually accomplished one of the tasks! The Gallery Wall! This also means I finally gave B his birthday present from 2011….two and a half years late, but who’s really counting?

Anyway, the whole process was really seamless with minimal holes in the wall so I wanted to share how I did my gallery wall.

1. Take inventory and Plan it out

I wanted to do all black frames on this layout since I was doing architecture-ish drawings. So first things first, I found any and all black frames lying around the house to see how I could incorporate those into the scheme since that meant less frames to buy! I also had to plan out the size of each of B’s images since they hadn’t been printed out yet. I knew a trip to Ikea was in our near future, so for any frames I needed, I based them off of the RIBBA frames from Ikea. I picked those because 1) they were black, and 2) they’re inexpensive and 3) they already had a nice mat in them which made framing super easy.

This step is potentially skipable if you don’t need to visualize it so clearly and you already have all your frames. Move on to step 2.

2. Layout the frames on paper

Once everything is framed and ready to go layout the frames on top of a piece of paper exactly how you want them on the wall. In the above photo some of the frames hang off the top or bottom edge just make sure that the part of the frame that has the hanging hardware is on the paper.

3. Trace around the frames

Trace around the edges of all the frames on the piece of paper and mark where the nail hole should be. For some of the frames I could poke a hold through the paper with the little hook. The Ikea frames had a wire running across the back so I measured from the top or bottom of the frame to the wire when it was pulled taught. Then translated that to the paper.

4. Hang up the traced paper

Figure out where you want the frames to go on the wall and hang up the paper. Make sure everything is straight and level!

5. X marks the spot

Pound in the nails/screws/your picture hanging hardware of choice at the x’s on the paper. The take the paper down and hang up your frames!

Voila! A gallery wall!

Have you hung up a gallery wall before? I would love to hear any techniques you have!

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