I have a large blank wall in my kitchen nook. One day, I hope to have a large, custom built banquet. But since that isn’t in the budget right now, I knew it would be a perfect space for a gallery wall.
I think gallery walls are kind of intimidating. There are just too many ways you can mess up. Pictures too close together, pictures too far apart, pictures that you swore were going to hang straight, but of course they are totally wonky. I decided to turn to Pinterest (the current holy grail of diy) and found two methods for hanging a gallery wall that I decided to play around with.
This method from the blog Roost uses wax paper to trace the outline of your different frames. The good part is that you can clearly see the back of the frames in order to mark where where you should place the nail. The part I didn’t like was using a whole piece of wax paper instead of individual pieces.
I found this method via Lauren Conrad’s blog. (Who knew diy was one of her things?) She uses brown kraft paper to trace the frames and then cuts out the shapes. The problem with this method is you can’t clearly see the back of the frame in order to mark where your nail hole should be.
So I decided to combine the two methods. First, I traced my frames onto a piece of kraft paper (I also saw people do this method with newspaper).
Next, I cut each frame out and laid the paper on the back of the frame. With my finger, I found the wire used to hang the frame and gently pushed it up (as if it was hanging on the wall) I then pushed a nail in the exact spot on the paper.
On the floor, I arranged the frames the way I wanted them hung and then taped the pieces of paper on the wall. It was really helpful to be able to move the pieces of paper around and step back. Hanging paintings usually is a two person job. But, with this method I was able to play around with what I wanted without any help. Not having to tell my husband, “move the second painting over just the smallest, smallest inch possible” made the whole project easier!
Next, I nailed the picture hanger directly on top of the kraft paper. Exactly in the spot I marked with the nail. All that was left was to rip the paper away from the wall leaving the picture hanger and hang the frames.
All of the pictures were hung exactly how I wanted them! No need to re-nail a single one.
A good start! I definitely want to hang a few different frames to bring in some texture (like the photo above). But, at least we aren’t staring at a blank white wall anymore!
If you missed Gregg’s post, filled with lots of inspirational gallery wall photos, click here.
