Show me your gallery walls and help me with mine, please!!

[GalleryWallHelp]

I have huge expanses of white walls in my hall and on my landing which I want to fill with a gallery wall. But I don't know where to start. I've trawled Pinterest and the like but the walls on their scare me - so well-curated and very Insta-read

I'd like to see normal people's gallery walls. So please show me yours!

I like quite eclectic gallery walls - a mix of photos, posters, art, different sorts of frames etc. And I like them to look 'full' rather than just 5-6 pictures hung on a wall which looks a bit naff.

If you did a gallery wall, how much do you think it cost you? I'm pricing up prints and posters etc. and it's looking like it'll be super-expensive. Is it?

Here are my bare-as-fuck walls

I like these kind of gallery walls but is this remotely feasible?

I've had one, Honestly the pictures just get knocked off and are a general pain in the arse...think washing basket, bulky school bags, dust....Get some funky wall paper instead

@Dnadoon

I've had one, Honestly the pictures just get knocked off and are a general pain in the arse...think washing basket, bulky school bags, dust....Get some funky wall paper instead

Sorry, that made me laugh

I don't think there's too much risk of things getting knocked off but I hear you about dust.

I had the hall/stairs/landing decorated last year so not looking to change wallpaper/paint for a good long while.

We had one going up the stairs - absolute dust magnet. Took it all down in the end.
This was many many years ago, long before they were everywhere, so the fact that they've now become such a standard 'everyone's got one' is quite off putting

Go for a big mirror to reflect light them some smaller pictures around it.

I did a "family wall" with my favorite photos, all printed in different sizes. I used the same frames, from Ikea, same colour to sort of pull the pictures together. I placed them flat on the wall with double sided tape, in the shape of a cloud ( well that was the idea anyway). I just love looking at the pictures when I walk past the wall.

@Stripyhoglets

Go for a big mirror to reflect light them some smaller pictures around it.

Do not talk to me about big mirrors. Big mirrors are another mission I'm on. Big mirrors that don't look cheap, that aren't too frame-y are hard to find. I saw a lovely one outside a charity shop the other day, nearly broke my neck craning out of the window to see it. By the time I got to it, it'd been sold.

But, yes, I hear you about big mirrors. Thanks!

@ShippingNews

I did a "family wall" with my favorite photos, all printed in different sizes. I used the same frames, from Ikea, same colour to sort of pull the pictures together. I placed them flat on the wall with double sided tape, in the shape of a cloud ( well that was the idea anyway). I just love looking at the pictures when I walk past the wall.

Aww, that's lovely.

I'm thinking of using old B&W photographs, some of my family (no idea who half the people are - olden dayers) and other just random ones I pull from online.

@Bluesheep8

We had one going up the stairs - absolute dust magnet. Took it all down in the end. This was many many years ago, long before they were everywhere, so the fact that they've now become such a standard 'everyone's got one' is quite off putting

Hmmm, dust magnet doesn't sound good.

I'm with you on the 'before they were everywhere' vibe. I have been very much in love with drinks trolleys for years. Then they suddenly became fashionable, every fucker had one and it put me right off.

With gallery walls being a bit common, what else could I do to cover up by depressingly white walls?!

We've had a few gallery walls similar to those in your example pics over the years, OP. Think we did our first one back in the early 2000s 😉

In our current, much smaller house we have three (plus a fourth made up of framed butterflies - not to everyone's taste, obviously 😯) - in the kitchen, guest bedroom and an attached outbuilding where we have our summer dining table.

They take up a whole wall, from floor to ceiling and comprise artwork we have collected over the years - many from carboots, charity shops, fleamarkets - as opposed to stuff we've gone out to buy specifically. No family photos (although I think old, historic photos would be lovely!), just an eclectic mix of framed prints, posters and original art.

So, the kitchen one has a theme of art nouveau posters/magazine covers, the outbuilding has botanical art, whilst the guest bedroom just has a selection of stuff we like 😃

I wouldn't worry about not being on trend - if you like it, go for it!

Sorry, meant to say, I can't seem to add any pics unfortunately.....

@Hebeee

We've had a few gallery walls similar to those in your example pics over the years, OP. Think we did our first one back in the early 2000s 😉

In our current, much smaller house we have three (plus a fourth made up of framed butterflies - not to everyone's taste, obviously 😯) - in the kitchen, guest bedroom and an attached outbuilding where we have our summer dining table.

They take up a whole wall, from floor to ceiling and comprise artwork we have collected over the years - many from carboots, charity shops, fleamarkets - as opposed to stuff we've gone out to buy specifically. No family photos (although I think old, historic photos would be lovely!), just an eclectic mix of framed prints, posters and original art.

So, the kitchen one has a theme of art nouveau posters/magazine covers, the outbuilding has botanical art, whilst the guest bedroom just has a selection of stuff we like 😃

I wouldn't worry about not being on trend - if you like it, go for it!

Yeah, I think this is what I need to do. Just start collecting things and build up over time. I'm too impatient

If you can attach photos at some point, I'd love to see your art nouveau gallery. My anaglypta paper is a nouveau pattern and my dining room has an art deco/art nouveau theme so I was thinking about doing posters/pictures from the era.

In fact I have some suffragette poster prints arriving today for my third bedroom and I was looking at this for the hall/landing somewhere.

I'll try, but being rural (with shit broadband 🙄) and only able to connect on my phone outdoors right now, it's hard, lol!

The suffragette posters sound great....and we have that absinthe one somewhere 😁

Mines music themed, its look actually that lopsided I took the photo from my chair

It doesn't look that was meant to say

Here you go (apologies for the crap photo quality....need a new phone!).....

We've had one up the stairs since we bought our first house in 2000. I love a gallery wall. When we did our first one we gathered a variety of arty photos by family members, pieces of art by family members (from a picture done by my artist aunt to a piece of paper handmade by DH's little brother at school), and original works of art we'd acquired one way or another (e.g. I'd worked in a shop as a student and a local gallery put up posters with small lino prints on them, after the exhibition ended I took the poster and lino print home) and got the lot framed properly. The framing was more expensive than the art in most cases, you could go down the IKEA route to save money. We deliberately made the frames all different which means when we get new fieces of art we don't have to worry about them frame matching the rest. Really glad we made that choice as we've moved house and added to it over time. All the images are meaningful to us in one way or another although some cost nothing (self portrait by DD aged 7) and some are worth a few grand now. It goes up 3 flights and there are over 40 pieces of 'art' so impossible to photograph.

This is my gallery wall up the stairs which is all black and white photographs. I’ve had it since I moved in 15 years ago and just update the photos every few years. I also gave 2 smaller gallery walls in the lounge.

If you are looking for a large mirror without much of a frame then this is the Chiltern mirror from the White Company that might fit the bill.

That sounds lovely, @JaninaDuszejko 😃

We had something like that in our Victorian family home (owned between 1997-2007) - it wound up the staircase across three main floors and a mezzanine and just kept on growing! When we downsized a bit our buyers - she happened to be a retired antique dealer with premises in the West end - purchased quite a lot of the art from us and it was still in situ when they sold the house a couple of years back 😉

We did keep the best pieces - and those with sentimental value - including some original art from the Arts & Crafts period, not to mention several mirrors from that era 🙄 Not sure how we've crammed it all in to our latest downsize, lol!

@Dnadoon

I've had one, Honestly the pictures just get knocked off and are a general pain in the arse...think washing basket, bulky school bags, dust....Get some funky wall paper instead

Yep same here

How about picture ledges? Makes it easier to switch the pictures when you want to update.

I prefer a 'less is more' gallery approach, by which I mean one very large carefully chosen 'chunky canvas' on each major section of wall. Also less of a dust magnet.

@Dotoallasyouwouldbedoneby

I prefer a 'less is more' gallery approach, by which I mean one very large carefully chosen 'chunky canvas' on each major section of wall. Also less of a dust magnet.

But, maybe it's just my family, what do you do with all the little pictures you get? We have a (very!) large piece we got as a wedding present in our dining room and it's the only piece of art in there but we also get smaller bits all the time, e.g. we've just been on holiday and got a tiny cyanotype and for my birthday my BIL gave me a small painting.

All photography is pretty much held digitally for me these days or blown up as large canvases lol. I am quite minimalist and hate dusty book cases despite being an avid Kindle reader.