If you follow along on Instagram, you probably know I’ve been struggling with our living room for quite some time. Well, since we moved in almost 3 years ago in fact. I finally made some major progress and it all began with this DIY Gallery Wall.
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Since we first moved in, I dreamt of a gallery wall in our living room but I was very intimidated. I am awful at hanging things and knew I couldn’t do it alone. I also could never make the decision on what size frames, what color frames, what type of photos – the list goes on. Little did I know, I was blowing this DIY gallery wall way out of proportion!
Once I finally talked RJ into the DIY gallery wall idea, I just needed to figure out the frames and photos. Hobby Lobby rotates 40% off different items each week, so I waited for a week when the wall frames were on sale and then took over the aisles! I finally decided I wanted clean, simple and a statement. We landed on 16×20 black frames with a clean white mat and 8×10 photos.
To stay on the clean and simple trend, I opted for black and white photos in our DIY gallery wall. Since I rarely take photos in black and white, I used VSCO to convert some of our favorite photos and memories. The filter package is $20 a year and offers a few different black and white options. I wanted a mix of travel photos, fun photos, and photos that held great memories for us. I like that they tell our story and are a great conversation piece when hosting. Once they were all black and white, I used Walgreens for printing. They were also on sale, so I believe I got all 9 photos for around $20.
Our DIY gallery wall was in motion! I thought these tough decisions were the hard part, but RJ would probably argue that hanging them was the most difficult (albeit still pretty easy) part. First, I laid all our frames out in the arrangement I would use for our wall. I decided what photo to put where and decided how the spacing would go. Next, we started with the bottom left frame. I wanted our wall to be pretty covered, so I started low and close to the baseboard. We held the frame up and then placed the nail directly in the middle of the top of the frame. Removed the frame and hammered the nail in, then replaced the frame. please note: this could be different based on how your frames hang. Next, we placed the next frame and looked at the spacing. Repeated the nail placing process and then moved on to the next frame. So on and so on.
When I looked at the cost of our total wall, I spent about $180 on the frames and $20 for printing. I already had the VSCO package with all the filters (they also have free Black and White filters) but if you purchase that, it’s an additional $20. $200 is pricey but the impact it had on our living room was definitely worth it. It also makes me SO happy to see so many of our favorite memories in the heart of our home.
All in all, creating this DIY gallery wall was much easier than expected. Just a little time consuming. We ended up doing this on our anniversary and we had so much fun reminiscing all our amazing memories! If you have any questions about the DIY gallery wall, just let me know! I am so happy we did it, stay tuned as I’m sharing our full living room soon. XO
Check out our Basket Wall for a fun gallery wall alternative!
Going to attempt this myself. Hoping it turns out as beautiful as yours! What size are your prints?
Thank you!! Please send pictures when you are done. My prints are 8×10. I’m going to update the post, thank you for asking!