A gallery wall is one of the nicest things to live with and one of the easiest to get slightly wrong. It is a group of pictures hung close together so they read as one piece, and when it works it can make a room feel lived in and personal. This is a practical guide to planning one: how to choose the pictures, how to lay them out before a single nail goes in, and the few measurements that make the difference.
In short · 6 min read
- Choose one thread that ties the pictures together: colour, frame or subject.
- Lay the whole arrangement out on the floor, then tape paper templates to the wall.
- Keep 5 to 8 cm between frames and centre the group about 145 cm from the floor.
- Start with the largest piece and build outward, leaving room for the wall to grow.
Choose a thread · Plan on the floor first · Spacing and height · Grid or salon · Frames and sizes · Leave room to grow
Choose a thread
The pictures on a gallery wall do not need to match, but they do need something in common, or the wall reads as a collection of separate decisions. The thread can be colour: a set of photographs in blues and greens, or all in black and white. It can be the frame, with every piece in the same wood, black or white. It can be a subject, such as water, faces, streets or light. One thread is usually enough. Two, such as black and white photographs in matching wood frames, make a very calm wall.
A black and white set works beautifully with ClaraXenia's photographs. Ready to Fly, a boy suspended in midair, sits well beside Circle of Life, a figure with arms wide at the ocean's edge, and The Space We Share. For colour, Underwater Flight, Indigo Sky and Emerald Storms share a palette of water, blue and green.
Plan on the floor first
Before anything goes on the wall, lay the frames out on the floor in front of it, arranged as you imagine them. Move them around until the group feels balanced, then take a photograph from above so you remember the layout. Next, cut paper templates to the size of each frame, mark where the hook will sit on each, and tape them to the wall with painter's tape. Live with the paper for a day or two. It is much easier to move a sheet of paper than to fill a hole.
Spacing and height
A gallery wall looks effortless only when the gaps between the frames are the same. Somewhere between 5 and 8 cm works for most groups, a little wider for larger pieces. Keep that gap consistent all the way round, and the eye reads the group as one shape.
For height, treat the whole group as one picture and place its centre at about 145 cm from the floor, the height we explained in How High to Hang a Picture. Above a sofa or a sideboard, the furniture sets the line: leave about 20 to 25 cm between the top of the sofa back and the lowest frame, and aim for a group around two thirds as wide as the furniture beneath it.
A gallery wall looks effortless only when the gaps between the frames are the same.
At a glance
- Spacing: 5 to 8 cm between frames, the same all the way round.
- Height: centre of the whole group about 145 cm from the floor.
- Above a sofa: 20 to 25 cm between the sofa back and the lowest frame.
- Width: around two thirds of the furniture below.
- Sizes: from 13x18 cm to 70x100 cm, depending on the photograph.
- Together: three pieces or more are 25% off, automatic in the cart.
Grid or salon
There are two broad ways to arrange a gallery wall. A grid uses frames of the same size in straight rows and columns, with identical gaps. It is calm, architectural and suits a modern room or a set of photographs that belong together. Three or six pieces of the same size in the same frame colour is a simple way to begin.
A salon arrangement mixes sizes and orientations in a looser cluster, named after the crowded walls of the old Paris exhibitions. It feels more personal and can grow easily. To keep it from looking scattered, start with the largest piece slightly off centre, build outward, and keep at least one shared line, for example all the frames aligned along the bottom edge or all within an imagined rectangle.
Frames and sizes
Frames do a lot of the work on a gallery wall. One frame colour throughout is the calmest choice. Mixing wood and black can work well when both appear more than once, so it looks chosen. Our Slim Frame is slim solid wood (pine or ash) in wood, dark wood, white or black, and the Gallery Frame is 20 mm oak in wood, white or black. Photographs come in sizes from 13x18 cm to 70x100 cm depending on the image, and some are available as squares, which sit neatly in a grid.
Three pieces or more from the Wall Art collection are 25% off together, and two are 15% off, taken off automatically in the cart, which makes a small group an easy place to start.
The best gallery walls are rarely finished. They are added to, one photograph at a time, over years.
Leave room to grow
The best gallery walls are rarely finished. They are added to, one photograph at a time, over years: a picture from a trip, a gift, something found. Leaving a little space at one edge makes that easy. A wall planned this way becomes a record of the things you have chosen to look at, which is perhaps the nicest thing a wall can be.
A quiet extension of this idea
Our pieces are built around this principle. A single word, placed so it naturally comes back into your attention during the day. Not something you have to focus on the whole day, just something that stays with you.
