Gallery Wall Tips
After hanging several gallery walls in my lifetime, I have found a few favorite tips to make planning and hanging of a gallery wall an easy task. I personally love gallery walls, because I have a lot of small artwork I’ve collected over the years – children’s artwork (my personal favorite), watercolors and pastels that I have picked up at yard sales and antique shops, and paint by numbers. With a gallery wall, you can showcase smaller pieces of artwork together for a bigger impact. Today, I am sharing a few of the tips with which I’ve had the most success.
1. Plan the placement of your artwork. I placed the pictures on the floor and moved things around until I had a pleasing arrangement.
2. Trace each frame onto paper. I traced each frame by outlining the frame in pen on scrap packing paper. Mark the center line of each frame, and to make it easy to remember which one is which also add a description of the artwork. Cut out template with scissors.
3. Hang paper templates on the wall with tape. You can easily move things around until you think it looks good.
4. Measure the back of each frame from the hanger to the top.
5. Mark this measurement on the paper at the centerline. Set nail into mark
6. Remove paper and hang frame in place.
7. Optional – I like to add a little poster putty to the bottom back of the frames to keep them from tilting. Poster putty will stick to the wall and the frame, but won’t damage either when you want to remove it.
8. Stand back and admire your work.
Do you have any favorite tips for hanging pictures? I’d love to hear them.
I hung the dining room plate wall the same way. You can see it here.
Thank You!! I am such a chicken when it comes to hanging things on the wall but these tips are so good, especially measuring the hanger placement and marking it on the paper. That’s the main part that worries me, will I get the nail into the right place on the wall. I will be giving this a try!
Great tips, Mary. I’ll use them when O do a gallery wall in my living room! J
Thank you, Mary! I have a gallery wall. I collect landscapes. My husband insists that all the frames match, so I always have black spray paint. He doesn’t care for “amateur art” but indulges me, so I paint the frames for household harmony.
I also collect floral still life paintings. I haven’t seen a good one in a long time, but I am always looking.
Great tips. I’d love to see tips like this, but for using Command Brand strips. The measuring and such seems to be a little trickier with them. 😉 BTW that’s the only way I’ll do a gallery wall…so afraid of (and honestly hate) nail holes. LOL