How To Design a Gallery Wall
A gallery wall starts with artwork you love. Choose frames that work with the art and the room, then use a coordinated frame set or create an arrangement of your own.
Choose Art and Frames That Work Together
Display what you love and want to look at every day. Photography, limited edition wall art and prints and silkscreens can mix with personal photographs, travel keepsakes and other meaningful pieces.
Start with a favorite piece. A large or more impactful work can anchor the gallery wall and help establish scale. Build outward from it, balancing larger pieces with smaller frames as the collection takes shape.
Create a cohesive collection. Your artwork does not need to match. Look for connections in color, subject, mood, style or framing while leaving room for variety. As you discover new pieces and have new experiences, your gallery wall can grow and evolve with your collection.
Choose frames with the room in mind. Look to the materials, colors and finishes already in your space for inspiration. Wood adds warmth and natural character while metal brings a clean, modern element. Frames can complement the room without matching it exactly.
Invest in quality framing. Well-made picture frames help protect artwork and stand up to years of use, moves and display changes. Look for precise corners, strong joinery or welded construction and archival-quality materials.
Design Tip: Explore ourArt & Wall Decor gallery for inspiration or to find a piece to build your gallery wall around.
Choose a Gallery Wall Layout
Let the artwork, wall and nearby furniture guide the scale of your gallery wall.
Measure the wall space to understand the area you have to work with. Nearby furniture can help establish the arrangement without defining its boundaries. Extending beyond a sofa or cabinet, toward the ceiling or lower on the wall can create more drama and impact.
Choose your approach. Start with a ready-made frame set and planned layout or build your own arrangement from individual frames. Picture frame sets offer coordinated sizes and materials plus a full-size hanging template, while individual frames give you more flexibility with size, material and placement.
Mixed grid and organic gallery walls create two different looks with many of the same ingredients. A mixed grid brings more structure through repeated sizes and aligned edges. An organic arrangement feels more relaxed, with varied sizes, orientations and gaps between frames that let the composition move more freely across the wall.
Horizontal and vertical gallery walls can help emphasize the shape of a space. A horizontal arrangement can stretch across a sofa, cabinet or other wide pieces of furniture, while a vertical arrangement draws the eye upward and makes good use of a narrower wall.
Stairway gallery walls follow the rise of the stairs, using varied frame sizes and placement to work with the architecture.
Design tip: For an easy-to-update alternative, picture ledges let you layer frames, rearrange artwork and add new pieces as your collection changes.
Plan Before You Hang
Test your layout. Lay the artwork and frames on the floor directly in front of the wall where you plan to hang them. Adjust the arrangement until the scale and placement feel right. For a closer preview, trace each frame onto kraft paper and secure the templates with painter’s tape. If you’re using a picture frame set, follow the included full-size hanging template.
Hang the frames. Choose hardware appropriate for your wall type and use a level where alignment matters. Picture frame sets include screws and drywall anchors for installation.
There are many ways to create a gallery wall. Let the artwork, the room and your own point of view guide the final arrangement, whether you build it piece by piece or start with a coordinated set for a little more direction.