An observant reader noticed our art gallery wall in our hallway in this Simple Solution post and asked for more info.
We don’t have tons of personal photos throughout our house, but our hall has photos of every immediate family member.
The hall frames were black before I decided to attack them with white spray paint this summer to lighten the group.
Before I saw a tip from Martha Stewart, our wall looked balanced, but cluttered. I don’t seem to have a picture of the entire layout before I implemented Martha’s tip, but this is how this wall looked for quite a while.
The layout isn’t drastically different, but pay attention to the bottom row of frames. What was Martha’s tip? Keep everything above and below a line of painters tape.
The tops of the frames in the bottom row are {roughly} in a line, while to bottoms of the middle row are in a line, too. To keep the arrangement looking uniform and uncluttered, I spaced the frames as evenly as possible while keeping columns of frames.
To further prevent an arrangemt from looking messy, keep the frames and mats the same throughout. We accentuated the center photo by painting the frame a contrasting color.
Obviously, there are endless ways to arrange a gallery wall, but this works for us. Do you prefer a balanced, symmetrical or completely asymmetrical layout? What’s your favorite picture hanging trick? Do you cut paper templates marked with hooks for easy, perfect hanging? Anyone use velcro or another adhesive? I’ve been known to keep pesky frames level with sticky tack behind the corners.
I’m planning to set up a gallery wall of frames above my computer desk so thanks for the tips.
I am glad to see both the black frames and now the white frames. I want to do this on a wall in our house but I think I might go white frames now after seeing how great it looks.
I think I was that observant reader! Woo hoo!
This is such a great post….thank you for the Martha tip, she is the master! 🙂
oh my gosh, what a great idea to put that one pic in the middle in a different color!
Thanks for sharing your tips I’ll be using them this weekend when I put up my photo wall in the hallway. I sprayed all the frames I have black and used some left over wallpaper as the backing colour so they match. Thanks again, to you and Martha 🙂
I love that look. It is so nice!
I want to create a gallery wall going up my staircase, I have about 20 different frames that I have with pictures, what would be the best way to organize those? I’m flummoxed! LOL!
First, if the frames are different finishes, I’d paint them all one color. Then, I’d tape a line that parallels the stair angle and put the bottom corners of the largest frames on that line (no lower). Fill in with smaller frames going no lower and try to keep columns if possible. Does that make sense?
A
Nice job. Not so easy! Dropping by from How To’s Day. Hope you’ll come see DD2’s picture wall we did for her.
Allison
Atticmag
My intent is for our new “powder room” to have lots of interesting photos and momentos framed and hung.
I think they will be given lots of undivided attention there. 🙂
pve
PVE, that sounds beautiful! Can’t wait to see it!
that domes on ur hallway lights do those have a slight grey smoke affect to them