Ever since I was a kid I’ve always had bulletin boards overflowing with things I wanted to save and look at every day. Whether that was pages ripped out of magazines, art work my talented friends had done or even cards and letters, it seemed like I never had a bulletin board big enough to hold everything I wanted to show. I also wasn’t allowed to just randomly start taping things to my wall or put holes in my wall in middle school so bulletin boards were the best way to go. In high school, I ripped out editorial pages or ads I found particularly beautiful from Elle and Vogue and started taping them to the back of the door to my room and my closet door (my mom was not so thrilled about this when she discovered it). Then in college I discovered the magic of Command strips so I could decorate my dorm room.

It makes sense then that gallery walls piqued my interest once I started renting apartments. Though I never made one in my college apartment, once I moved into an apartment in the Fan downtown, I decided it was time. I had some frames I knew I already wanted to hang and then I began looking for other pieces to add to my collection. Through my friend Rachel, I discovered Amber Thomas’ etsy and fell in love. I contacted Amber about a couple ideas I had and she created three custom watercolor paintings that I adore. The obvious next step was to go to Pinterest to figure out how to actually hang a gallery wall. I have two methods of creating a gallery wall that I thought I would share with you all today!

RVA apartment gallery wall

RVA bedroom gallery wall

Method 1: The “Right” Way

Through my research I found this article about how to hang a gallery wall the “right” way. It definitely helped me, but some of the steps I skipped or were a little too tedious for me. But I took it and created a modified version that I’ve found super helpful.

Gather Supplies

First, figure out everything you want to hang. If you have prints or art work that need to be framed, figure out the dimensions and hit up a craft store (or, if you’re like me, ask your mom if you can use some of the 50 empty frames she has in the attic). Once you have everything you want to frame, make sure you have these supplies:

• Hammer
• Picture hanging hooks/straight nails
• Command hooks/command strips (optional, but good if you don’t want to put holes in your wall or you discover halfway through hanging everything that some of your frames aren’t actually meant to be hung on the wall)
• Kraft paper (I found this kind at Target and the dispenser box is super handy)
• Painter’s tap (or washi tape works great too!)
• Pencil/marker
• Level (optional, but really helpful if you can’t stand crooked pictures like myself)

Layout

I usually start by laying out everything I want to hang on the floor to get the general outline. This is a good time to play around with what you want to be your “central” piece or what you want the focal point of the wall to be.

Kraft Paper Outline

Next, I used the craft paper to start tracing my frames and cutting out the shapes to actually tape on the wall before putting any holes in the wall. At first, I thought this was incredibly tedious and was honestly going to skip this step in my apartment in Raleigh, but then I realized my middle point wasn’t actually the true middle. Once I cut out all the “frames,” I labeled each one so I knew which frame I was actually hanging. So for example, I have a print that my roommate Lizzie had gotten me for my birthday of Snow White and the Seven Pugs, so I wrote “snow & pugs” on that piece of kraft paper.

Tape It Up

Once I’ve got all my frames mocked up with kraft paper, I go ahead and start taping those pieces up on the wall to make sure the layout I created on the floor actually looks good on the wall and in the space I’ve picked.

Some wall space I recommend for a gallery wall:

• Above your bed
• Living room: above the couch, above a mantle
• Dining room: if you’ve got a lot of wall space you aren’t sure what to do with

Hang It!

After all that prep work, now you can finally hang your frames! The article I mentioned earlier suggests marking the kraft paper with the spot of where you actually want the nail to go and nailing directly into the kraft paper and then tearing the kraft paper off the wall once the frame is hung. I tried this in my apartment in the Fan, it was not so easy for me. A lot of the time, I would mark the nail hole and then the frame would hang lower than I expected and messed with the spacing of each frame. And the kraft paper was a little stronger than I anticipated and didn’t come off the wall all that easily. In my apartment in Raleigh, I taped the kraft paper up to make sure it looked centered and balanced on the wall above my couch before putting nails in the wall.

Method 2: Wing It

I’ve had everything I want to hang in my apartment in Raleigh laying on my living room floor since the week I moved in. I decided I needed to actually just hang some things without thinking about it and go from there.

For example, I have a mantle in my apartment (!!! Very excited about this) and the empty space above it was bothering me, so I just hung my Salvador Dali inspired clock above the mantle and decided to work around it (also, I didn’t have a clock in the living room and it was starting to drive me insane). Since some of my frames are just standing frames, I decided I would set them on the mantle and work around them and the clock to create a simple gallery wall there.

In my bedroom, I had an empty wall above my desk and since I’ve actually been using my desk for it’s intended purpose since I moved, I decided I needed to hang something there. But for this space, I didn’t want it to be anything framed. I wanted the space to resemble more of an inspiration board since I’ve been doing a lot of work there. Since I didn’t really want anything to be permanent, I started looking for other ways to hang things. That’s when I discovered this magnetic hanging system and it is SO COOL. So instead of measuring everything out, I just took a few pieces I knew I wanted to hang and stuck the magnet stickers on the wall and then hung up my prints. I think this is a super cool way to have a system of hanging things that you can easily switch out, like you would switch out items on an inspiration or vision board.

I absolutely love creating gallery walls and they aren’t as daunting as they seem once you decide to go for it. I hope this helped give you a few decorating/gallery wall ideas! Do you have any tips and tricks for creating gallery walls? Share them in the comments below!