How to Make an Eclectic Gallery Wall

Make a statement with an eclectic gallery wall full of your unique items and cherished memories. Decorating your home with a gallery wall is a great way to full blank spaces.

I’m happy to say that the eclectic gallery wall for our entry is finally finished! It’s a bit different than other gallery walls I’ve seen, though I knew it would be since I wanted to use a lot of things that we already had.

Because of that I went looking for inspiration on Pinterest and found a number of photos to pin to my boards. And it was Pinterest to the rescue! I did find some other pinners who used some sentimental and vintage items lines like I wanted – to a degree. Of course, I added my own “reuse & use what you have” spin to the gallery wall idea.

As you can see above, the wall I had to work with is huge – it has a 12-foot peak and can be seen from all the rooms in our great room, though this is in fact the entry (you can view the yellow cottage house tour here for a better idea of how the room is laid out).

This area has seen a couple of different looks since we moved in:

Entry Look #1: The photo on the left is what the entry area looked like for the first four years we lived here. I didn’t really spend a lot of time or effort on it and the size of the wall always seemed to dwarf whatever I put on the wall.

Entry Look #2: The photo on the right above was taken after a small makeover of the entry. I tried to ground the wall grouping by putting it closer to the cabinet, adding a vintage lamp to help connect them.

I liked it, but again was bugged by the amount of white wall – it just seemed to make the vintage black trays seem so small. I thought I might add to the trays, but I really didn’t want to buy things just to buy them.

Note: okay, when you look back on old decor, you can really see how much your style has changed, right?

So when I started seeing a lot of bloggers creating cool gallery walls, I realized I had the perfect wall to create my own version – and I’d be able to use all the pictures that have been stored since we moved here...seven years ago. Bonus!

How to Make an Eclectic Gallery Wall

Step 1: gather items, including hangers, and make paper templates.

I have to confess that I was just going to pull out the items I wanted to use, lay them out on the floor and hang them up in a way that looked good (which to me is always balanced – that’s some type of personality, isn’t it?). I thought taking the time to cut out paper templates was, well…extreme. Goodness, they’re just nail holes after all.

Ah-hem. Yeah, so here’s the thing: when you’re working with a lot of different shapes and sizes, some of which are already on the wall, it’s just a lot easier to cut out the dumb shapes. Really.

Step 2: Arrange templates on wall and hang items.

And you know what else was easier, besides moving paper around instead of pictures? Hanging the items!

• Pound a nail into the middle of the paper template.
• Remove the paper and view a perfectly centered hole for your hanging nail or hook.

I think it took all of ten minutes to hang everything up after messing with the templates to get them where I wanted. Yep, lesson learned.

That’s actually all there is to it – two easy steps.

But I took another step because I couldn’t decide if I wanted black frames or white:

I needed to paint the collected thrift store frames to help them coordinate and I thought black would go with the vintage trays. We lived with this look for a few days, but it never sat well with me. It just struck me as to ‘heavy’ looking for the space.

So I spray painted the frames white.

Ah, much better. I was immediately happier with this look so I knew it worked. You’ve always got to trust your instincts in cases like this because it’s you who are living in the house!

In the end the only items I had to buy were two frames and a set of old-looking keys, so the total cost of this project was just under $20.00. And I’m thrilled to finally use these meaningful prints that had been laying around and add a few vintage touches. It fills up the space while still leaves enough wall for breathing room.

However, my favorite thing about this wall is the memories I see when I look at these things. In fact, I’m calling it our ‘Memory Gallery Wall’ because it doesn’t have photos or computer prints and almost everything on the wall has a story to tell – about us. Update: You can read all about the memories that make up this wall here.

I hope you are encouraged to create your own eclectic gallery wall full of special mementos and memories that will make you smile when you see it.