How I Create the Perfect Gallery Wall

5 Tips for hanging a gallery wall in your home

A short while ago I hung this beautiful gallery wall for a client of mine, and now I'm going to talk you through how I did it.

1. Choose the Art

We begin with step 1: choose your art. For this client, she wanted her children's art, so she collected it all up, and we selected the pieces to go in, based on what I thought looked good, and her favourite pieces.

For most people, you would need to choose a colour scheme, and use art that either compliments or contrasts that scheme.

If, like this client, you want to use children's art, then you will need to find a common theme, style or colours.

The art in this gallery wall was chosen mostly for its style; the pieces that looked similar. I disregarded colour, because I knew that they would all be different. If you want to disregard colour too, and go for something eclectic, then make sure you pick lots of differently coloured pieces; you want it to look purposeful that nothing matches, not accidental.

2. Measure Up

The first thing to do before finding the frames is to measure up.

For this client, I wrote a number on the back of each artwork, noted all the numbers down in my notebook, then measured each one and wrote the measurements next to the corresponding numbers.

3. Find the Frames

This client wanted simple, thin black frames to go with the other art in her house. We did run through a few more options, for example using vintage or used frames, but as the rest of her house was contemporary, we went for a more contemporary frame.

It was also important that we kept the frames simple, because of the riot of colour in the artwork.

Finally, we decided not to use mounts (the white borders you sometimes see on artwork), to achieve a more contemporary look, and to avoid the cost of having to get bigger frames.

So, I started looking for simple black frames in the sizes I needed from the fewest shops. (John Lewis has a good selection of 'ANYDAY' branded black thin frames, and cheaper than Ikea; Ikea is good for slightly odd sizes, and we also bought from Nielsen, who make a high quality frame, but at a high price point).

I listed the frame sizes, the amount of each frame, and links to a couple of different frame options in an excel spreadsheet, sent it over to my client, and she bought them.

4. Framing and Deciding on the Layout

I then framed each piece and decided on two 'hero' pieces that the rest of the wall would be built around (in this case, the collage cat and dog face with the white background.

Laying these two pieces out on the floor, I built up the rest of the frames around them, in the diagonal shape I needed for the stairwell (I also measured the width and height of the stairwell, to make sure I was within the measurements).

5. When Hanging Your Gallery Wall

I took one of my hero pieces and hung that first, using brass head masonry nails (if your wall is brick, you need masonry nails. If it's plaster, with a void between the plaster and the wall, you'll need special plaster screws).

Then I hung the rest around it, leaving a gap of 3 cm between each one. If all of your pieces are rectangular or square, then a 3cm gap is the magic number, I've found.

If your pieces are irregularly shaped, try to hang all of the rectangular or square ones first, leaving rough gaps for the irregular ones, then measure to the centre of the gap, and from that point, measure up to where the nail will be. This will put your piece in the centre.

Make sure to check each piece is straight with a small level before you measure the gap

Pay attention to the balance of each piece, if something looks wrong in a particular spot, it probably is!

I hope this has helped you when considering hanging your own gallery wall. Let me know below if you'd like me to go more in depth on the technical aspects!

Thanks for reading,

Nx