Photo Gallery Walls

It's no secret that I love photography. I am a snap-happy soul and my houses are filled wall to wall with frames preserving my most precious memories. After several years creating gallery walls, I have picked up some good pointers I wish I knew about a thousand nail holes ago. Read on to see my new gallery wall and some of my very best tips for when you make your own.

My new house is about a thousand square feet smaller than my old house, and has considerably less wall space too. In order to display some of my favorite photos, I have to maximize every square inch of wall space. I chose this small brown wall in my entry.

These are all photos my husband or I have taken. I order all my enlargements through Costco.com. They are of great quality and you just cant beat the price!

Once I select the photos and frames I want to display, I arrange them on the floor.

Don't feel like you have to use all the same style or color of frames. I think variation in color and textures can give the gallery depth.

Try arranging and rearranging... changing orientation... until its just right. I take pictures of the different layouts I come up with my iPhone so I can look back and see which layout I prefer. This tip also helps you keep track of what picture goes where when hanging.

While gallery walls can be beautiful, the mine field of nail holes they leave behind can also be stunning but not in the flattering sense of the word. My solution? 3M Command Picture Frame Hanging Strips. These strips are amazing! They basically use velcro-like adhering tabs to secure frames to the walls without damaging them. When you want to remove them completely, you just pull on the tabs and it slides off the wall! Awesome! They are also incredibly strong and stabilizing which I needed them to be because this particular wall is by a busy entry from the front door, the garage, the playroom, and my stairs so I knew I needed my frames to be tightly secured to the wall. Especially since I planned to have the pictures fill the length of the wall, I anticipate they will get bumped and brushed. Alaska gets lots of earthquakes too.

I used them to attach my monogrammed glass frame to my front door, which attests to their strength since its below 0 most nights and hasn't crested 30 degrees during the day.

I also used it to secure my son's sign to his bedroom door.

But back to the project at hand...

I velcro two tabs together for each top corner and peel off the back paper to adhere them to the frame.

Next, peel off the top tab paper and press to the wall. I turn to my iPhone again to use its level app to insure my frames are level before applying pressure.



I always start hanging one edge of the gallery at a time. I usually start by hanging the frames at the top and then going down the sides and then the bottom, and I fill in the center frames last. This gives my gallery straight edges.

Here's my new gallery...

I am linking to these awesome parties.

*I have not received any sort of compensation for my review of 3M products or Costco.com. These are my personal opinions and recommendations and are unaffiliated and unbeknownst to these respective companies.

This is featured on:

First Comes Love