Living Room Gallery Wall

Hi! How was everyone's weekend? I started playing around with a layout for the "gallery wall" I want to do in our living room. This is the fourth wall in our living room, the one I didn't show you originally when I posted about this room. Gee, I wonder why?



Ooops. It has nothing on it (except four switch plates!). No furniture, no artwork. Its a slightly weird space. This is the "walkway" to get from the kitchen (that doorway on the left) to the family room (doorway to the right). The main part of the living room, where the fireplace, sofa, coffee table and chairs are is off to the side, pretty much where I'm standing to take this pic. It's large enough that it could have some sort of function...or a sideboard or bookcases or a secretary, something. But I'm not sure what yet. And to be honest, this whole room is pretty temporary (not that that is a reason to do nothing with it)...I'm assuming that once we have kids, the family room and living room are going to have to be rethought to accommodate are growing/changing needs.

But anyways...in the meantime...I have a huge blank wall with nothing on it and I have a ton of stuff/frames in the basement that I'm not doing anything with. Instant gallery wall. I hope. So I got out the main pieces I wanted to use (some paintings I've done, a cross-stitch my grandmother made for me, a wedding gift of both of our coat of arms) and started messing around with them, filling in the extra space with any random frames or prints I had lying around.



Luckily, the floor in front of this wall is completely open, so I was able to just lay out the frames right here on the ground in front of the wall. This helped me know how wide to make the gigantic invisible rectangle that all the smaller frames will fit inside of (I'd like for the most part for all the frames in the bottom row to be aligned on the bottom, frames in the top row aligned on the top, frames in the left column to be aligned on the left, etc.) I measured the usable vertical space on the wall and then laid my tape measure down on the ground (locked right after the height measurement I wanted) to know how tall to build my layout.



From there I just played around with the composition and placement of everything. Alot of these frames contain artwork that I'm not going to use (it just happened to be in the frame already, or I liked it when we bought it but not anymore) so once I have everything hung in the correct spots, I'll swap out what's inside for new artwork I really like. I'm also considering painting some of the frame molding if I don't think the color works for this room (like that random blue frame on the bottom right - that's my grandma's cross-stitch). For now I'm just worried about getting the sizes and shapes of the frames in the right spot. I think I'm liking the arrangement below. Although its still sitting on the floor like this (thanks for not stepping on any of them, Paul!) so it could change. Any thoughts?




Ps. For a beautiful gallery wall and great tutorial on how to hang one, check out this recent post of Mrs. Limestone's.

Pps. Do any of you have gallery walls?

Comments

  1. that last one looks nice. My darling husband is the "gallery wall creator" of our family. He is really good at composing. Looking forward to seeing yours finished.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi there -- looks like a great plan! We actually just did a small gallery wall on two walls that are next to each other. Hubby put it together, so I can't complain, but I might have tried to figure it out a little better like you did! But, I'm happy to finally have something on the walls! Good luck! Janet

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think the gallery wall is a nice idea. I tried to hang a grouping of pictures in the guest room, but could not seem to get all of the pics level even with a "level". I became frustrated and quit. You should check out the pics on
    http://elizabeth-kentuckymama.blogspot.com/
    She just posted some great inspiration pics of gallery walls. I hope this helps and good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey, Emily and Janet! Too funny that your husbands do the gallery walls. Paul, not so much...he can't handle all the math!!!

    Thanks so much for that post reference, Amy! I just checked it out, she has some great inspiration photos, thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sarah, this is so inspiring and very timely for me since I have been DREAMING of a gallery wall in my new home for months now. I want to do it in our upstairs hallway. Thanks for the great tips and inspiring photos!! Love this blog!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think it looks great! I hope to do this in my living room too which, is finally going to be painted within the week. I just tried another BM sample (Sterling) but I'm still back to the Smoky Taupe so I'm just going to do it. (It's about time, huh?!). Let me know when you're is up. I'd love to include it in the photowall collection post on my blog. :)

    Hope all is well!

    Talk to you soon.

    Roeshel

    ReplyDelete
  7. love the last pic of the gallery. I'm a sucker for clean lines squared off pic galleries. We have a big one in our living room of all pics from various trips we've been on. It's a great conversation started with guests.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm so excited to see how this turns out! Beautiful, I'm sure : )

    ReplyDelete
  9. Here is mine (although I just took mine down too!)

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/halfofvamh/2932764978/in/set-72157607890054242/

    ReplyDelete
  10. costa rica investment opportunities is a great alternative if you want to live a beautiful country like Costa Rica which have a pleasant climate and helpful people. That is why I decided to buy a house in this beautiful country. My house have a spacious living room, and I am really happy.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts