Gallery walls – one of the most timeless and stylish ways in which you can add character and personality throughout a home. When executed well, these carefully curated displays upgrade blank wall spaces into cohesive, intentional works of art. What many fail to understand is that achieving a well-presented gallery wall doesn’t require the help of a professional interior designer. While styling services can be beneficial, you can achieve a similar effect with the right knowledge of spacing, balance, and visual flow. Some will find that specifically designed gallery wall art offers homeowners a framework to build upon, for a coordinated, polished and complete room at a modest budget.
Factors To Keep In Mind When Creating Gallery Walls
Gallery walls should be approached with purpose above all else. Rather than viewing this as a decorative effort to spruce up your living room, it needs to be treated as a design feature, just as you would when selecting the perfect paint colour or seating. Your gallery wall, no matter the room you wish to display it in, will become an anchor point, naturally drawing the eye whilst bringing the space to life. With this in mind, the first thing required is identifying why you want to incorporate one into your home. What is its purpose? For some, this will frame the seating arrangement in a formal hosting area, for others, it could be to create flow and movement up a staircase or through a narrow hallway. Understanding what you wish to achieve from your gallery wall will enable you to make informed decisions about its scale, composition, and layout, as well as establish an end result you are happy with.
Another key and critical factor to consider is the placement. A gallery wall should correlate proportionally to its surroundings, including the wall it is hung upon and the furniture. Framed prints and decor hung too high or spaced too close to one another can make your home feel unbalanced – the exact opposite effect that we are trying to achieve. Professional interior designers will often align the overall width of a gallery wall with the pieces already occupying the room, like the sofas, rugs and sideboards. More ideally, if you can put your display above a piece of furniture, this allows the two elements to work together visually, often improving the overall aesthetic. For those that do not have this option, the wall itself will become your reference point for scale and positioning, with the gallery wall being positioned centrally to maintain the balance, order and symmetry.
Tone. Subject matter. Framing. Three essential things to consider, as once your placement is confirmed, cohesion becomes the next priority. A well-thought-out gallery wall works best when it looks uniform, not random! Prints, canvases and framed artwork can come together to curate a beautiful display, but what makes it unified is following a colourway, visual feature or theme. This approach allows for individuality within each piece while preserving a sense of structure across the wall.
Spacing is often overlooked, yet it is one of the most important decisions you can make when positioning your individual prints for your gallery wall. Now this can be difficult. With patience and the right tools, consistent spacing between frames will provide the flow and help the wall appear as a single feature, rather than a collection of prints dotted around. Designers typically use the same gap between each frame throughout the entire layout. This provides visual clarity and prevents the display from feeling cluttered.
Scale is just as important as spacing and placement. A gallery wall that feels disproportionate to the room, both in terms of the overall outcome and the individual frames, will leave your room feeling underwhelming or worse, overpowered. Grouping smaller prints together intentionally will collectively occupy enough wall space that it starts to feel deliberate – which is exactly what we want! With that said, incorporating one or two larger pieces will ensure you anchor the composition of the gallery wall and provide that presence to naturally draw the eye to.
The Next Steps
Do not nail anything into the wall just yet. We do not want to get ahead of ourselves and nobody wants to be left with holes to fill, sand and paint later. When asking a professional interior designer for their best tips on gallery walls, they all say one thing: map it out! Never go into this handing items randomly and hoping for the best. Arranging the artwork on the floor to replicate how it will appear on the wall gives you the freedom to move things around and find the best placements for each individual frame. Using your floor mapping to easily adjust positionings will ensure your gallery wall is balanced and aligned, as well as identifying gaps, awkward proportions and minor mistakes.
A few other factors you may wish to consider:
Framing – This acts as a visual boundary between your artwork and your wall. Mixing frames can be effective when done with intention. However, many choose cohesion, using all black, all white, or all natural wood, based on their preferences and interior style.
Accents – Your gallery wall will look most intentional when it matches your property’s style and furniture. It should also repeat colours seen throughout the room. For example, a Scandinavian apartment is best suited to natural wood framing around neutral abstract prints. Remember, consistency contributes strongly to a curated finish.
Lighting – Natural light and artificial lighting will affect how your gallery wall is perceived. While natural light will enhance colours and textures, bright artificial lighting can make pieces look out of place. Ensure your lighting works with your gallery wall, avoiding glare and shadow. On the other hand, where natural lighting is limited, consider picture lights that allow each piece to be fully appreciated.
A gallery wall does not need to be completed all at once. Many professionally styled homes feature displays that evolve over time. Adding pieces gradually will make your display feel more personalised, more special and work as a great conversation starter when hosting guests. This approach also gives the opportunity for reassessing your gallery wall seasonally, switching out pieces that feel a little outdated and prevents overcrowding.
Building a gallery wall that looks like it belongs comes down to careful planning, working to find the right balance and paying close attention to the finer details. When a gallery wall is hung well, it not only adds character to your property, but depth, flow and intention. You do not need to hire a professional interior designer to design your dream space; in fact, often approaching styling yourself helps maintain a timeless house that feels like home.
