DIY GALLERY WALL

When it really came down to it I didn’t exactly do it myself. I have to give a huge shout out to my other half for his help in finding pieces for the wall, helping me decide placement and also hanging/measuring each piece.

I am going to share with you our triumphs for our beautiful gallery wall and how you can get one.

First you need to find all necessary pieces for your wall. I started with so many more things then I really needed.

These are the things you can use [with what we used]:

– paintings: acrylic, water color, oil, etc. [we used a beautiful feather water color painting by my Mom]
– drawings: pencil, pen, chalk, etc.
– huge letters [we used a big A from Hobby Lobby]
– framed wording/quotes [we used “Keep on Dreaming Even If It Breaks Your Heart” that is framed perfectly from my friend Diana & an “I love you to the moon & back” print that I did in Illustrator and printed on cardstock]
– photographs [we used 2 b&w photos of us, a photograph of a sunflower that I took in highschool, & a print of one of my textile designs]
– artwork/posters [we used a super cool sepia print map from AU & a Camel City poster we bought at a flea market]
– and lastly 3D art [we used an NC State nails & string wooden hanging that I made for AU & an old piece of decorative wall that I bought in Asheville years ago]

The options are literally endless and you can use whatever you want!

First lay out all your pieces, we tried to work with a color palette of black, white, browns, and sepia. After laying out all of our stuff a lot of it didn’t work together so we removed some things and kept with the last 12 items.

Measure your wall space and create a space on the floor so you can visualize the frames going onto a wall. Once we figured out the pieces we wanted we bought frames from Target in black.

Once your floor space is measured out to echo your wall, arrange all frames & items together. I must of re-arranged our items at least 15 times until I settled on the last one. I moved the large map from the left to the center and kept the A with an open top (I think this was the most pleasing layout).

Grab all your tools:
– nails, a hammer, hanging hooks, a tape measure, a pencil, and a leveler

Start with the largest piece (we started with the map). Place it where you would like on the wall and nail it, then hang it.

AU and I had a method going: I would place it where I wanted, he would hold it for me to see, then I would hold it for him to draw a line on the top of the frame in pencil, then he would measure down from the line to match where the hook was on the frame, then he would nail it, hang it, check if it was level and we would move on.

It seems I did a lot of sitting pretty while he worked…

After the first frame is up it gets easier. As you move along you can just use the original frame to level and measure where to hang your other frames & pieces.

We used 1 1/4″ from bottom of the frame to the top of the other (vertically) and 1 1/2″ from the side of the frames to the other sides (horizontally).

We kept measuring, nailing, hanging, & leveling until they were all up!

[the beautiful finished product!!!]

I really love how it turned out. We had to go higher up the wall because of the tall lamp on our entry way table but I am so happy with the result.

And overall, it was pretty easy (especially when you’re mostly just watching ;)).