Creating a gallery wall

I know I’m about the gazillionth person to do a gallery wall, but honest guv, I’ve wanted to do it for ages. Like in the days before Pinterest. (So that’d be a year and a half ago then. Seriously, I just Googled it and Pinterest started in September 2011.Wowzers!)

So this is our gallery wall. I’m a little bit in love with it.

And this is how we did it.

1. Pick a wall. This wall in our office was crying out for some attention. It desperately needed some colour and some art – it was uber plain. Wall found.

2. Decide on your style. There are oodles of ways to do this. Same colour frames, different colour frames, black and white photos, multi-coloured canvases, odd artwork, napkins – you name it. I had a couple of key pieces that helped form the style of ours.

First off was a brilliant magnetic world map from Dwell. My oldest friend got me this for my 30th – isn’t it swell? Swell from Dwell. We’ve had much fun pinning and plotting where we want to go next, and where we’ve been. And in my eyes it’s made for a gallery wall. Then there was a beautiful destination print from my brother and sister-in-law. I’d been lusting after it for a while and it was very thoughtful Christmas gift for me and Mr J. It’s from Betsy Benn at notonthehighstreet. I could not love it more.

So, these two travel-inspired artworks had to feature on our wall. We could have gone down the travel route but I’m too wiggly for that – I can’t do a whole theme theme. I  already had the polka dot canvas and snagged the ‘love’ sign from Marks and Spencer in the sale, so a random theme gallery it was.

3. Find your art. I’m a bit of a squirrel and a tad of an over-buyer, so this part wasn’t too tough for me. A couple of el cheapo frames, a couple of middle-of-the-road frames, a canvas from my lovely mummy, a frame I already owned… you get the picture. Geddit, the picture? On a wall of pictures. Jokes. For frames that were empty I pulled together some different things, postcards, funny birthday cards, a bit of fabric that I love and different printed pics- I’m planning on swapping these round regularly.

4. Arrange your art. I wanted to play around with layouts and needed to see them together so made a frame the same size as the wall. I did this with the help of my landing and some ribbon that was in a nearby box. It’s not pretty I know! I hadn’t even opened the curtains! But it did help work out the grouping and spacing.

5. Hang your art. Or in my case, get Mr J to hang it. The technicalities of this I do not know – it involves power tools and a big spirit level. I left him to it, but this grainy iPad in-progress pic shows he started at the bottom – getting the spacing and levels right. Then hung the pictures at the top, and presumably made the bits in-between work. *Note the spirit level in the pic, and a large bear called Humphrey wearing a Stetson.

And there you have it, 5 simple steps to a gorgeous gallery wall.

I really do love it. I’m already planning another smaller one for the extension. I think I’m going to go for a more coordinated look, maybe all white frames with black and white prints.

After a bit of deliberation I’ve decided to submit this little space in the Home Love contest on the fabulous Fashion for Home. I read about the competition ages ago and kinda forgot to do anything about it. But this weekend I snuggled into the daybed with an enormous cuppa and a stack of magazines (heaven) and spent a lovely hour here. Motivation enough to take some pics and write a blog post. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Whaddya think? Like it or no thanks? Am I too late on the whole gallery wall thang? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Nicky xoxo