Gallery walls are everywhere today. With so many styles and designs to choose from, we decided to take a look at the steps you need to take to create a clean, modern minimalist gallery wall. Just because a living room is a space where you spend a lot of time doesn't mean it needs to be a place full of a lot of things. By paring down furniture, art, and other belongings, living rooms can become a minimalist retreat ideal for lounging, socializing, or snoozing. We decided to take a look at a Pretty Fix for some guidance. Here are the steps they recommend following to obtain this sleek look.
Step 1 – Simple Design
The ‘modern minimalist’ gallery begins with a very simple layout or design.
Perhaps the simplest is the Grid Gallery Wall like this one or this one. Grid gallery walls each use the same size frame, often square or rectangular, and are displayed as a grouping like the one below.
There are plenty of variations of modern minimalist gallery walls, but you get the idea: a clean, simple design.
Step 2: Simple Aesthetic
Creating a modern gallery wall that’s also minimalist can often (though not always) mean choosing:
1) a simple style of frame
2) the same color in all your frames
3) minimal color variations in your prints
To keep things simple, we chose to do all three with the above look.
Step 3: Measure, Measure, Measure
1) About 6-12 Inches Above Furniture: The lowest point of any print or artwork – whether it is a singular print or a gallery wall – should be about 6-12 inches above any piece of furniture it is hung over. Prints or artwork should appear as part of the overall vignette and not floating so far above your furniture that the whole space feels disconnected.
2) About 2-4 Inches Between: Your gallery wall should feel as though it ‘reads’ as one large piece of art. Each piece should feel connected to the other. If you’re not sure how to accomplish that, then make sure each piece is no more than two to four inches apart from the other.
Step 4: Laying Out Your Design
Lay out the pieces of your gallery wall on the floor first so you can get an idea of what it will look like. If you need to, snap some pictures as you’re doing this exercise so you remember how you’ve arranged things and so you can go back and decide after you’ve had some time to think about it.
Step 5: Mock it Up
To be sure that your composition is placed properly and looks good on the wall, mock it up with paper. Trace each frame onto a piece of kraft or tissue paper, trim to size, and tape to the wall in your desired order.
Ask yourself, is it grouped around nearby furniture appropriately? Is it at a comfortable height? Does it fill the space appropriately? Keep in mind the proportion of art to wall size and vice versa.
Step 6: Hang ‘Em
After you’ve spent some time prepping, this final step should be the easiest. Before you even think about hammering, lay the frames out on the ground in front of the wall and give yourself a preview of your arrangement and spacing.
As with any perfectly placed piece of art, you’ll want to mark each paper with the spot where the nail should be placed, and when the paper is on the wall, hammer it directly into the mark on the paper, tearing the placeholder once your nail is in place. Continue the process with the rest of your pieces and voila, you are done.
What do you think? Are there any tips you have to share? If so, leave a comment below!