Tips to Plan a Gallery Wall

Learn from this simple tips on how to plan a gallery wall for any room in your house! Display those cherished moments with your family on your wall! 

One week to go on the One Room Challenge and I think we’re going to make it! The goal is to have all the little projects that are left done by Friday so that I can take pictures this weekend and then you know what that means?! Baby time!! Okay well hopefully not quite yet…but then it’s time to transition Clara to her new toddler chic room and then deep clean the nursery in preparation for baby to arrive.

In case you’ve missed past ORC updates, catch up on them all here:

Week 1 | The Room
Week 2 | The Design Plan
Week 3 | Painting Decisions
Week 4 | Overcoming Decor SetbacksI don’t want to spill all the details in the room, but today I’m excited to show you the gorgeous gallery wall we’ve put together with the help from my friends at Mpix.com. When I heard Mpix had come out with some new collage designs I knew it would be perfect for what I had in mind.

Confession Time

I’m a total nerd when it comes to planning out room makeovers. I’m very visual and don’t want to buy something that won’t work later on, so here’s what I put together prior to ordering any pictures so that I could get an idea of what things would look like.

Last Spring we had professional family pictures taken in a lavender field to announce that I was pregnant with baby #2. I knew those pictures would be perfect for the gallery wall to tie everything together with the purple! I also knew I wanted to include some of the photos we took throughout Clara’s first year of life that I ended up using in the collage.

Here are some tips I learned as I planned out our gallery wall:

• Decide on your anchor pieces — what are the main pieces you want to highlight or show off?
• Decide what look you’re going for — make a secret board on Pinterest and start pinning gallery walls you love. Once you have 5-10 inspiration pictures you should have a good idea of what look you want to go with. A clean, modern wall where everything is aligned, or maybe you want a more eclectic look with mismatched items?
• Once you have all your pieces for the wall, plan out your gallery wall before you start nailing. You can do it visually on the computer like I did above or do what this lady did! She did a great job mapping it all out with brown paper bags and tape. Plus, it makes it really easy to hang everything aligned perfectly.

Now, are you ready to see how ours turned out? I’m so excited to show you!

After I had everything mapped out exactly how I wanted it and then ordered pictures through Mpix I realized I had the wrong dimensions for the arrow so things had to get changed up a bit so that’s why things look a bit different but I LOVE how it turned out!

Here’s a few pictures to tie you over until the full reveal next week.

 

I love this standout print from Mpix that adds the perfect contemporary touch to our gallery wall. You can order them on white or black and they stand out 1.5 inches from the wall.

And here’s one last project update list. I’m so excited to see all the final details come together and can’t wait to show you the completed room makeover next week!

Project List

• Clear out room
• Paint room including closet
• Create feature wall
• Makeover old dresser 
• Build reading bench — got this cubby from Orchard Supply instead that is perfect!!
• Make bench seat cushion
• Make rocking chair cushion
• Build bookshelves
• Make giraffe growth chart & paint — follow Instagram stories for updates — almost done!
• Make “Clara’s Kitchen” sign — almost done!
• Make above bed graphic art — no progress this week
• Build cornice board & install — built but not installed, bought curtain rod, and almost ready to go
• Make gallery wall frames & paint
• Buy chandelier & hang
• Hang window curtains
• Have Clara make artwork
• Make fabric tassel garland & hang
• Buy coat hooks & install
• Create gallery wall
• Accessorize!

Be sure to check out all of the other ORC plans here! There are so many amazing projects and I love seeing the progress everyone is making!

And of course THANK YOU to my One Room Challenge sponsors for partnering with me on this bedroom makeover! This room makeover would not be near as awesome without you!

Orchard Supply Hardware | Mpix | Expressions Vinyl

You can follow along with the toddler chic bedroom progress here:

Week 1 | The Room

Week 2 | The Design Plan

Week 3 | Painting Decisions

Week 4 | Overcoming Decor Setbacks