How To Make a Gallery Wall

Oh, gallery walls, how I love thee. I love their mix-matched cohesiveness, and how it can totally bring a room together. When I was thinking about Julia’s nursery, a gallery wall was never on my horizon, but then I kept finding things I wanted to put in her room. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have a place for them. That’s when a gallery wall popped into my head as the perfect solution.

What wasn’t so brilliant was trying to actually make the gallery happen. We had a fresh coat of pain on the wall and I really didn’t want to go making unnecessary holes everywhere. Unfortunately, I’m a visual person, so I couldn’t just imagine what everything would look like hung up; I had to figure out a way to literally visualize the wall.

I’m sure I found this idea on Pinterest, but it was genius and worked perfectly. I took all the items I wanted up on the wall and traced them onto paper. I even went a tiny step further and used somewhat colored shades of paper to represent the different colors I had for frames and things (I didn’t want three pinks right next to each other, for example).

The photo above was only step one; I changed it up a few times after I snapped that pic. Once I had things where I thought I wanted them, I’d take a step back and make sure it looked good. I also left it up for a day or so to make sure I really liked it. Then, once I was sure it was good to go, I summoned my husband to start poking some holes.

Here’s what it looks like today:

The end result makes me happy. I like that Julia even notices the pictures on the wall; she’ll point to them while we’re changing her. I also have a perfect view of the wall when I nurse her, and I love seeing the different stages of her life. The only problem I have now is where to squeeze in new pictures!