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Designing and installing a gallery wall

 

My default design style is for single pictures on a wall with large expanses of painted plaster all around, so it was something of a challenge to contemplate a gallery wall in my living room. Since I have recently moved into a much smaller office, I have a number of significant photos that need a new home. I also have a few other pictures stacked up, waiting for a space on my walls. The photos include several graduation photos, some family photos, a couple of artworks that were gifts, and a large photo of my favourite cat. The photos are too important to hide in an album or to rotate out, and I would not have enough wall-space to hang all of them conventionally. 

A formal layout from Pintrest: https://za.pinterest.com/pin/611926668143218077/

I started on the gallery wall project by exploring Pintrest, YouTube and Instagram for inspiration and tips - there is a wealth of wonderful projects and posts to get you going, with examples that range from very informal through to very structured. A consistent message on all of these platforms is that the individual items should be meaningful to you, rather than just a random collection of images and objects. Also, the gallery wall should complement the rest of the room, so this could influence your choice of works and their mounts and frames - can you create some colour or textural themes that echo other artworks or pieces of furniture?

I measured up the wall that I planned to use, measured each of my pictures, and set these up in powerpoint so that I could play around with different layouts. As an architect, I am used to visualising layouts "on paper", but some people find it easier to lay out the actual pictures and objects on the floor or cut out paper in the shapes and sizes of each piece and tape them on the wall. The most important is to use one or more of these techniques to explore your design options before committing to hammering picture hooks into the wall. When working with the layout, I found it useful to mark out the furniture against and near the wall, so that the gallery wall did not appear cramped or too far away. My first attempt forgot to include my computer screen, so some of the photos would have been obscured by it. An important tip that many of the YouTube and Pintrest posts mention is that one needs to be careful with the spacing of the works, to ensure that they do not look crowded or that there are awkward gaps. 

Measuring the wall, furniture and pictures

One of my challenges was that I had a large range of sizes, from small photos through to a large map, 60 x 80cm. Some of my more successful layouts that I explored, grouped the smaller pictures to balance the visual weight of the larger ones. Some layouts had a group in a line, others forming a 2 x 2 block. 

Another challenge was that two of the pictures were line drawings, while all of the others were quite dark coloured photos, so I used different colours in the powerpoint so that I could work with the visual balance. If you are using a paper mock-up on the actual wall, it may be an idea to use different types of paper (say brown craft paper and newsprint) to represent different textures and visual weight.

My final layout

Now that I have fixed on a layout, I need to think about how to do the installation - how to transfer the design onto the wall and what types of mounts to use. Here it is good to use a tape measure and spirit level especially if your layout requires lining up two or more of the pictures. You can use the spirit level for both horizontal and vertical alignment, as well as for checking that each piece is level - one or more pictures out of alignment makes for a very amateur effect. You can get a spirit level from a hardware store or download an App on your Smartphone, although these are less accurate.


If you have done your layout with paper directly on the wall, you can simply mark the corners with a soft pencil or coloured chalk that can be washed off easily (test this on a part of the wall that will be out of sight). If you laid out the pieces on the floor, a great way of transferring the layout is to create a rectangle with masking tape that encloses all the artwork and mark off along each side of the rectangle to position each item. Take a long piece of string and run it past the top of the picture all the way to the left and right hand strip of tape and make a mark on each side, then do the same with one side of the picture. You should then have two horizontal and two vertical marks. You can then transfer the tape to the wall and locate each work by joining the corresponding marks on the tape for the horizontal and vertical position of each picture. If your planning has been on drawings, you may find that it is simpler to mimic the layout on the floor, or on the wall using paper cutouts.

The simplest way to hang the pieces is to use double-sided tape, but be careful of using this method if your pieces are quite large and heavy. This has the advantage of being able to locate the corners of each work and simply apply pressure. 

I prefer to use Hilti nails or masonry nails, as my walls are of brick. If yours are drywall you will need to explore different types of fixing that provide sufficient grip, such as expanding screw plugs, or Command Hooks that tape onto the wall. You may need to install picture wire if there are no hooks already provided with the frame - avoid using string, as this can stretch and spoil the alignment. If you are using picture wire, place the ring hooks 1/3 of the distance from the top of the picture to prevent it tilting away from the wall. The wire should come to slightly below the frame at the top. You will need to measure this distance from the top of the wire to the top of the frame to mark the position of the nail or picture hook.

When you have finished installing your gallery wall, this is not the end - take a few months to get used to it. Do you want to rearrange some of the elements? Would a different frame for a focal picture help to give emphasis? You can keep adding to the wall and changing it over time, as your tastes change and when you get new furniture - the gallery wall is an integral part of the decor of your room and should adapt with it.

An informal layout from Pintrest: https://za.pinterest.com/pin/146718900353337487/






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