How to Create a Gallery Wall: A Step-by-Step Guide

Why Gallery Walls Work in Any Room

A gallery wall does something a single framed print can't: it fills a space with personality. Instead of one focal point, you get a curated collection that tells a story — your travels, your family, your taste. Done well, it turns a blank wall into the most interesting thing in the room.

The good news is that a gallery wall doesn't require a designer's eye or a carpenter's precision. It requires a plan. Follow these steps and you'll have a wall worth stopping to look at.

Step 1: Choose Your Wall and Measure the Space

Start by picking the right wall. The best candidates are:

• The wall behind a sofa or bed — naturally framed by furniture below, giving the arrangement a visual anchor
• A staircase wall — the diagonal flow of stairs pairs naturally with an asymmetric arrangement that climbs with them
• A hallway or entryway wall — first impressions benefit from a strong visual statement
• An empty dining room wall — eye-level art beside a table creates an intimate, restaurant-like atmosphere

Once you've chosen your wall, measure its width and height. Write these down — you'll need them when planning your layout. As a general guide, your gallery arrangement should cover roughly two-thirds of the width of the furniture below it, or span no more than 75% of the total wall width when there's no furniture anchor.

Step 2: Pick a Layout Style

There are four main gallery wall layouts. Choose based on your wall shape and personal style:

Grid Layout

Identical frames, equal spacing, perfectly aligned rows and columns. Clean, modern, satisfying. Works best with matching frames in the same size. Ideal for minimalist picture frames in a contemporary or Scandi-style room.

Salon Style

Mixed frame sizes, mixed orientations, arranged densely without a strict grid. The most expressive and forgiving layout — small gaps and slight misalignments add character. This is the style most associated with French-inspired interiors and works beautifully with vintage-inspired frames in different sizes and finishes.

Linear / Horizontal Row

A single row of frames aligned along a shared top or bottom edge. Clean and contained — perfect for narrow walls, above a console table, or along a hallway. Mix portrait and landscape orientations for rhythm.

Asymmetric / Organic

Frames cluster naturally around a central anchor piece, spreading outward with no fixed grid. Works best when one large frame acts as the focal point with smaller pieces radiating around it.

Step 3: Choose Your Frames

Frame choice shapes the entire mood of a gallery wall. A few principles:

Stick to a finish family

You don't need identical frames, but they should share a finish tone. Gold, brass, and bronze read as one family. Black, charcoal, and dark wood read as another. White, cream, and distressed white form a third. Mixing within a family creates visual richness without chaos.

Vary the size, not the style

Mixing sizes (4×6, 5×7, 8×10, 11×14) within a single style creates the layered, curated look of a salon wall. If every frame is the same size, stick to a grid layout.

Frame collections to consider

• Vintage-Inspired Frames — carved floral borders, antique gold and bronze finishes, ornate detailing. Ideal for salon-style walls with a warm, traditional character.
• Minimalist Picture Frames — clean lines, chiselled stone-look textures, modern colour options. Suited to grid layouts in contemporary spaces.
• All Picture Frames — the full range across sizes from wallet-sized to 11×14, including oval and octagonal shapes that add unexpected silhouette variety to any arrangement.

Don't ignore shape

Rectangular frames are the default, but including one oval or arch-shaped frame in a salon arrangement breaks the grid in a way that feels intentional and sophisticated. An oval vintage frame placed at the centre of a salon wall makes a strong focal point.

Step 4: Plan Your Layout on the Floor First

This step saves more frustration than any other. Before you hammer a single nail, lay your frames on the floor in front of the wall and arrange them there.

1. Gather all frames you plan to use — include any mirrors or decorative objects you're considering adding
2. Lay them out on the floor in roughly the same dimensions as your wall space
3. Photograph the arrangement from above — you'll refer to this photo when hanging
4. Measure the gaps between frames while they're on the floor — aim for consistent spacing (2–3 inches for a tighter salon look, 4–6 inches for a more relaxed grid)
5. Make adjustments until the arrangement feels balanced — typically, larger frames belong at the centre or bottom of the arrangement, smaller frames toward the edges

The floor plan removes all guesswork from the wall. You're not improvising with a hammer — you're executing a plan you've already approved.

Step 5: Hang It — The Template Method

The template method removes the most common gallery wall frustration: wrong nail holes.

1. Trace each frame onto paper (newspaper or kraft paper works well) and cut out the shapes
2. Mark the hanging point on each template — the exact point where the nail needs to go, based on the frame's hardware on the back
3. Tape the templates to the wall using painter's tape, matching your planned layout. Step back and check the proportions from a distance
4. Hammer nails through the templates at the marked points — the paper tears around the nail cleanly
5. Remove the templates and hang the frames

Height guide: The centre of your gallery arrangement should sit at approximately eye level — around 57–60 inches from the floor. When anchoring above furniture, leave 6–8 inches of space between the top of the furniture and the bottom of the lowest frame.

Step 6: Add Dimension Beyond Frames

The most interesting gallery walls aren't made entirely of framed prints. Adding objects at different depths creates a layered, collected-over-time quality that purely flat arrangements lack.

Mirrors

A decorative wall mirror placed within a gallery arrangement reflects light back into the room and adds a practical element to what might otherwise feel purely decorative. An ornate oval mirror in an antique gold finish anchors a vintage salon wall naturally.

Sculptural wall pieces

Wall-mounted decorative objects — birds, botanical motifs, small sculptural panels — add physical dimension. When everything else is flat against the wall, one piece that projects forward at 2–3 inches draws the eye and creates shadow play. Browse modern abstract decor for wall-suitable sculptural accents.

Open-back frames

An ornate open-back frame hung on its own — no photo inside, just the frame revealing the wall behind it — is a confident, maximalist choice that signals intentional style. Used as a single accent within a larger salon arrangement, it creates a moment of visual pause.

Common Gallery Wall Mistakes to Avoid

• Hanging too high. The most universal mistake. Artwork consistently hung at 57–60 inches centre height looks professionally placed. Anything higher creates a disconnected floating effect.
• Spacing frames too far apart. Frames that are more than 6 inches apart read as separate artworks rather than a unified arrangement. Keep gaps consistent and tighter than feels natural at first.
• Using all the same size. A gallery wall made entirely of 5×7 frames looks like a school corridor. Vary sizes for visual rhythm — at least one large anchor piece (11×14 or larger) gives the arrangement a centre of gravity.
• Matching frames too perfectly. Twelve identical black frames hung in a grid is one look. But a salon wall should feel like it grew over time — slight variations in finish, size, and style are features, not flaws.
• Skipping the floor plan. Twenty minutes on the floor saves three rounds of patching nail holes.

Gallery Wall Ideas by Room

Living room — salon style above the sofa

Start with one large 11×14 vintage frame at centre, surround with 5×7 and 8×10 frames in complementary finishes, and add an oval mirror to the upper right. Keep all finishes in the warm gold-bronze family. Browse vintage-inspired frames for the full range of sizes and finishes.

Bedroom — minimal grid above the bed

A 3×3 or 2×4 grid of matching frames in white or cream above the headboard creates a calm, cohesive backdrop. Uniform white frames with black-and-white photography is a timeless combination. See minimalist picture frames for clean stone-finish and carved-border options.

Hallway — linear row at eye level

A single horizontal row of 3–5 frames aligned along their centre line transforms a narrow hallway into a proper gallery. Choose frames in the same size for a clean look, or vary heights slightly and align their tops instead.

Home office — personal achievement wall

Diplomas, certificates, and meaningful photos grouped together on the wall behind your desk. Match frames across the group — same finish, coordinated sizes. Certificate and diploma frames in 8.5×11 and 11×14 sizes with mat inserts display these documents in a way that honours them.

Ready to Start?

A gallery wall is one of the highest-impact changes you can make to a room, and most of the work is in the planning — not the hanging. Once your frames are chosen and your layout is set, the wall itself comes together in an afternoon.

Browse the full Simon's Shop picture frame collection to find your starting pieces — from wallet-sized ornate frames to large gallery-ready sizes, all available in finishes from antique gold to distressed white to matte black.