How To Make A Stunning Gallery Wall (Plus 15 Unique Themes)

Gallery Wall Standard Practices

A gallery wall is a display of art pieces, photos, or collectibles, usually arranged in a staggered pattern. The purpose of the gallery wall is to create an interesting focal point for your room’s décor and can be used to show off your favorite artwork or photos from travels around the world. Ultimately, they are the focal point of any room, so be sure to have fun with your theme and layout.

Gallery walls typically have around seven elements displayed together around eye level. It’s recommended to have equal distance between your art pieces, but it’s important to note that there really is no right or wrong way to create gallery walls.

This article will go over the essential steps of creating a gallery wall, ideas for each room in your home, and 15 unique gallery walls that will inspire you!

Related Post: Tips to Make Small Rooms Look & Feel Bigger

How to Make a Gallery Wall

1. Choose your location & theme

The first step is figuring out where in your home you want to create a gallery wall; then choose a theme for your display. Do you want it to be modern and minimalist? What colors do you want to showcase? Or perhaps you want all of your items to be vintage, colorful, or artistic…

During this process, Pinterest is your best friend. Create a board with all of your inspiration and keep them in mind while going through each step.

When choosing a theme, think of what room the wall art collage will be in and what type of theme matches best. For example, if you’re creating a gallery wall in your living room that has a lot of antique/thrifted furniture, it may not make sense to have a gallery wall with modern, black and white photographs.

But remember, the beauty of interior design is that there is no wrong way to do anything. At the end of the day, it’s your home, so do what fits your desires! While there are ‘standard practices’ with interior design, you ultimately get to do what makes you happy.

2. Find your pieces of art

This is the fun part! After you have your theme picked out, you can acquire your pieces of art through a variety of ways: order prints online (might we suggest a one-line drawing from wanderlifestudios.com? *wink wink*), go thrifting, DIY, raid your storage unit, hit up some garage sales, print out your favorite photos you’ve taken – the list is endless.

3. Make a plan for your gallery wall layout

When it comes to creating a gallery wall, it’s important to plan ahead and map out your layout before you start hanging. You can draw some basic sketches on graph paper or create an image in Canva so you can look at it from all angles.

You’ll want to consider:

• The size of the wall (and how much room there is between each piece)
• The size of each piece of art (how big will it be on the wall?) and whether they’re centered or off-center
• The flow of your gallery wall—where do different pieces lead viewers’ eyes when they walk into a room?

You can even do a practice-run with pieces of paper and tape them onto the wall to see how it would look. If you’d like to scale it down, you can use A4 paper, notecards, and post-its to do a smaller version of the layout.

Using tape to practice your layout is another great idea.

4. Hang Your Art

Use your templates that you’ve already taped on the wall to start hammering nails or use stick-on frame hooks. Another really easy idea is to lay out all of the art pieces on a large roll of paper (you can even use wrapping papger) to see how they all fit together. Outline the frames with a marker, then hang the paper on the wall. From here, you’ll hammer in your nails and tear off the paper. Voila! Your pictures are ready to be hung!

Your gallery wall is now complete! Continue reading to see more ideas for each room and 15 unique ideas for your future gallery wall!

Gallery Wall Idea For Every Room in the House

Entryway

Idea For You: Choose a bright accent wall and then use your gallery wall to bring in different shades of that color. For example, if you have a blue accent wall (which looks great with any other tonal or neutral shade), try using a gallery wall featuring shades of turquoise or green to really make that blue pop!

Living Room

Idea For You: Create a gallery wall around your tv! You can even incorporate your TV into your gallery by playing youtube videos specifically created to be artwork. On your smart TV, open the YouTube app and search “art screensaver” and enjoy hours-long videos with beautiful art!

Bedroom

Idea For You: The bedroom is our zen space, so choose art pieces that instantly calm you down and make you feel at peace. Your gallery wall will be the first thing you see when you enter your bedroom, so having a calming gallery wall will set a peaceful tone.

Kitchen

Idea For You: Choose a color theme for your kitchen’s gallery wall and then find photographs of food in the color of your choice. It’ll be cohesive, but also have a yummy vibe that fits perfectly in your kitchen.

Dining Room

Idea For You: Here’s a really fun idea my brother created in his dining room: the Cook’s Illustrated gallery wall. On every Cook’s Illustrated magazine, the back cover is a beautiful illustration of a certain type of food/ingredient. He framed each of these back covers and created a one-of-a-kind gallery wall that’s perfect for a dining room!

Bathroom

Idea For You: Let’s be honest, we spend a decent amount of time in the bathroom (*ahem*). Why not mentally go to another place by showcasing tropical photos or beautiful destinations. Daydream and do your business at the same time…

Staircase

Idea For You: Staircases are the most popular place to have family portraits displayed in a gallery wall. Why not print your favorite photos in black and white, and create a gallery wall that covers the entire corner? It will make you so happy every time you walk up and down the stairs.

15 Unique Gallery Wall Themes

1. Plants

2. Mixed Media

3. Travel

4. Kid’s Room

5. One-Line Art

6. Cutting Boards

7. Boho

8. Kids’ Art

9. Rainbow Shadow Boxes

11. Vintage

12. Shelves

13. Entire Wall

14. Empty Picture Frames

15. Mirrors

We hope this guide has been helpful. Now that you know how to build a gallery wall, it’s time to get started on making your own! Just remember: there are no concrete rules to gallery walls – the possibilities are endless! Happy designing!