How to Install a Gallery Wall in Your Home or Office
It has been about one year since I’ve been working at home for both my “day job” and hosting my workshops virtually for Sarah King Creates. Throughout the year, I’ve been toying around with various attempts at what sort of arrangement and decor makes the most cohesive space for both at-home work and creative endeavors. One thing that became clear was that the wall behind my computer was going to get way more air-time on zoom calls than it had ever seen before. So naturally, it couldn’t stay boring.
I’m sharing my process today in case you also have art or photographs you haven’t found a good home for yet, or want to create an eye-catching zoom background, without having to switch to a green screen. Follow the pictures for instructions and tips to try this yourself and view the video below to see the installation process in my home office.
Step-by-Step Instructions
1. Gather items you’d like to hang and an area on the floor or tabletop that is the size of the area on the wall where they will go. If needed, put painter’s tape on the floor or tabletop for boundaries of the approximate size you’re looking to fill.
2. Try putting together different combinations until you find a style you like. I was going for an eclectic, collage-looking style, but it still needed to be balanced visually with color, weight and shapes even distributed. If you’d rather go for a more traditional look, you could use all rectangular or square items, with generally the same color palette. I recommend putting the art closer together than you may usually or what you’d do if you were just hanging a few pieces. By placing the art close together, it gives a sense that the many pieces are part of one large piece of artwork.
Note - I had a hanging plant already hung on the wall where this gallery was going, so when I laid out the options, I used a blank piece of paper (far left in the above photo) to hold the space for it. I measured how far down it hang from the ceiling and made sure to place the paper in that spot.
Tip - To make the ceiling feel higher and draw up your eye, place photos as flush with the top of the wall as you can go and still hang them. My ceilings are 8 foot high, so I used this method. The top edge of the artwork was about 3/4 of an inch from where the ceiling meets the wall.
Blank wall prior to installation
Supplies:
artwork, photographs, plants, or other pieces of decor to hang
ruler
sticky notes or painter's tape
nails or removable adhesive picture hangers if you don’t want to create holes in the wall
hammer
optional: Stud finder, level, pushpins, upholstery tacks
3. Once you have decided your layout, gather your hanging materials and get to work!
How do you hang them? Since most of my items were lightweight, I used a combination of small nails, upholstery tacks, and pushpins to hang the art. I typically used two small nails under the top edge for canvas art that has a wooden frame inside. For the thin canvas pieces, I used upholstery tacks in the center on top and bottom and you can see these. However, if you have a heavy piece and your wall is made of drywall, you’ll need to use a stud finder and ensure that at least once of the picture-hanging hardware is in the wooden stud behind the drywall.
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