How to style your gallery wall

Hands up if you love a good gallery wall? You know I do!

Ever since I stumbled upon them years ago in my early Pinterest days, I fell in love. As a woman obsessed with filling every inch of my home with something interesting… a blank wall was never going to be my forte. 

But much like my mission to fill my space and every nook and cranny, there comes a time when you’re ready to update the space you’re in. The gallery wall I worked on building a year ago had started to feel like an outdated project in need of desperate revamping. And as a bonus it also means the old prints and frames from above our sofa can now happily live in a new space (our guest room is about to finally get a well deserved update – wahoo!). 

Instead of haphazardly selecting prints and frames, I enlisted the help of Desenio’s Create Your Own Gallery Wall builder on their website to help in making my decorative decisions.

And I really needed the help, because what I think looks good in theory… might not in practicality. The way it works is that you start off by picking out a template of your home area (which also happens to make me want more home items but that’s for another day). Then it’s onto the picture wall itself, you could do two by two, four frames or like me, you can go wild with eight! From there it’s selecting the prints that you want before finally picking out all the frame colours. 

So little by little, I built up my perfect new gallery wall. It definitely took a few days to swap prints and figure out exactly what I wanted for our flat. After about 96 hours of mulling it over and consistently staring at this design… I was done.

And I realized a few must factors that you need to know for your own gallery wall too.

How to style your gallery wall:

Choose where your gallery wall is going to go

Are you thinking of updating the area above your sofa (like me, hello!)? Or are you thinking something more simplistic above your bed? The first step is picking out where you want your wall to go because the wall area will determine how much or how little you’ll want to add to the space.

Don’t be afraid to mix and match

I am obviously the queen of chaos, so it goes without saying that I’m here for a bit of mismatched style. Mix it up! I looked for art, cityscapes, landscapes, words, drawings – you name it. Go big or go home! Or in this case, we’re all staying home to admire our completed gallery walls. 

Pick a colour or theme 

Yes, I know I said go for mixing and matching. But it does help to have an idea of what you’d like in your space as even mismatched style likes to be a little cohesive. I stuck to beige and black with little pops of colour. It meant that I could pick a whole bunch of great prints that didn’t necessarily match in design but worked well as a whole because of their tones.

Make sure you measure properly

OK, so my wall looks good, but I probably should have actually taken the time to measure what would fit because I’ve ended up with some pretty big prints! They suit the space, but I definitely should have measured – don’t make my mistake! Measure before you buy them. 

And most importantly…

Pick the prints that make you happy

After all you’re looking at them everyday! 

As you know, I’m working with Desenio on this blog post to talk a little about their Gallery Wall builder. But all of these prints and frames I purchased myself after using it. The good thing about Desenio is that there’s always a sale to be found. I nabbed all of these prints for 30% off and then a fellow blogger who was working with them at the time had a further discount code that I could use. Always search for a good discount code – it means that I didn’t have to pick and choose which prints and frames I wanted… I could get them all. Music to my ears!

Shop the prints: Pink Peony Florals, Stay Up All Night, Autumn Lake Landscape, Desert Sand, Embracing Faces, NYC City Views, Yellow Sun, NYC subway sign

Because at the moment, we’re working on a number of projects for the flat (including figuring out a new roof situation with the management). So while I was desperate for an update, I was even more keen to do so when I knew I was getting a good deal on it too.

So what do you think? What’s your go-to gallery wall look like? Do you have any must-have tips for building a gallery wall space? 

Kelly xx

PS. This is part of a sponsored post with Desenio, but I bought all the prints and frames myself on this one. 🙂