How to hang a symmetrical gallery wall

Hello there! I hope you are staying warm wherever you are, I can't believe the frigid temperatures across the nation. In the fall after the kids went back to school something about the family room was making it feel too cluttered and busy to me. I identified one of the culprits as the gallery wall and decided to re-vamp it! I pictured something more modern, simple and sleek.

-- and the focus to be more on the pictures than the frames.  I wasn't willing to drop over $500 for a gallery wall so this is what I came up with:  the 16X20 frames are actually from Hobby Lobby and I got them when frames were 50% off, so they were only $5 each. The sale didn't show up online but it did in store when all the other frames go on sale.  I also noticed Wal-mart had some almost identical ones for $7.99 so you may want to check those out. I think they look like black matte metal unless you get really close and touch them you can tell they are plastic.





The mats are my favorite though -- they are the 16X20 portrait museum mat with an 8X10 opening. They are not centered and have more white at the bottom, thus giving them the "museum" look? Anyway, I loved them. There always seem to be a sale going on with free shipping at Blick.

To hang them, we have had this hanging laser level that they don't sell anymore (here it is on Ebay) that shoots a laser across the whole wall. Here is the new version on Amazon and I think you can hang it with command strips if you don't any holes in the wall from it.

































First, we calculated how wide and how tall we wanted the gallery to be. Where do you want the bottom of the bottom row of pictures to be and where to you want the top of the top row of pictures to be? Then, we measured the size of the frames and then decided how far we wanted them to be apart. Next, painter's tape was used to measure the distance from the hook on the back of one frame to the hook on the back of the next and put that on the laser and hung the nails on each end. Does that make any sense?? If you can see in the above pic, we also used painters tape to measure vertically how far from the hook at the back to where the next row started. Painter's tape is your friend when hanging a gallery wall!

It actually ended up working really well and the hardest part was definitely the math and getting that laser hung at the perfect angle. (there is a handy level on it that lets you know when it is straight.)

I was thrilled that we were able to use all of the favorite pictures from our old gallery wall plus add some new ones.

See that fiddle leaf fig? It is out of control -- getting so big!! Which is good but I'm not sure exactly where to put it. I hope this helps give you ideas for your gallery wall goals.

Happy Wednesday!