Well…wonder no more! Alexis and I flexed our home decor muscles last week and turned a huge blank wall into a fabulous statement piece. When guests came to visit comments such as, “Did you hire a service for that?” and “How did you get everything so perfect!?” were heard. And although it took a little time, it was really pretty easy.
Step 1: Find your frames. Alexis chose 16x16 square frames with 5x7 matted openings from Home Depot. They came in a set of 4 and she bought 4 sets. So 16 great frames! Turns out the wall in question could only really hold 9, but no worries, there were many other blank spaces to fill.
Step 2: Order your pictures. The great thing about these frames is that they perfectly align within the gallery whether your photo is a horizontal or vertical format. So there is no trying to figure out how to arrange the frames based on the orientation of the photo. The frames are all identical!
Step 3: Arrange your photos. For the accent wall, Alexis chose 5 vertical photos and 4 horizontal, all black and white, from her wedding. With three rows of three, the photo arrangement was:
Top row: vertical, horizontal, vertical
Middle row: horizontal, vertical, horizontal
Bottom row: vertical, horizontal, vertical
I don’t know that all that matters so much, but it was very symmetrical.
Step 4: Place the photos in the frames. Tape the photo to the back of the matting and make sure to wipe down the frame glass and mat. We don’t want any smudges!
Step 5: Measure. At first, we were going to hang all 16 frames in the space Alexis had chosen. If we did, there would be only 3 inches between the outside frame and the adjacent wall, which just seemed too close. Coming in about 13 inches from the side walls allowed for 3 frames in a row with a 3 inch gap between each. The 3 inch gap went between all the frames which created a perfect 54x54 inch square gallery wall.
Step 6: Finally, we hung the frames. This took the longest amount of time, but we soon got into a rhythm. The frames had hooks on the left and right sides which keeps the frames very secure on the wall. We made a craft paper pattern to place each frame, and then taped that to the wall giving us a starting point. We used drywall screws to hang the center frame and worked out from there. A level from the toolbox and some old school “eyeballing” worked equally well.
I think it came out just perfect. Some of the extra frames were used to make a smaller gallery wall. If you look closely, you might find some imperfections, but if you don’t, you’ll think, “That looks so great!”
This new path I’ve chosen keeps sending me down little lanes along the way. If you have a home decor project you’ve been thinking about for your space, come visit me over at FirstHomeEd.com, and let’s get started.
So many good things to come,
Diana Cohen
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