Framing it Up

Several months ago, I saw this post about a frame gallery wall on YoungHouseLove (my favorite remodeling idea source).   They have ideas that I want to steal pretty often…  but I actually did steal this one.

The frame gallery wall has been popular on Pinterest. The site has frame layout ideas and hundreds of pictures of them.

Here’s a Pottery Barn version:

and here’s another DIY version, done with $80 worth of Ikea frames.

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now. The first hold up was my lack of picture frames. I also had no good place to put one of these galleries.

Craigslist came to my rescue for frames. I picked up 45 mismatched frames of various sizes and conditions for $27. Check out the creepy 80’s children.

The second hold up was location. Our hallway and staircase are both too narrow for frames, and I didn’t want to put this much work into a bedroom or the basement. The living room was my first choice. We had our furniture arranged awkwardly around the TV corner, but we rearranged everything last Saturday when we moved the TV.

The little bookshelf to the right was moved next to the fireplace, and it took me about 4 minutes to decide to throw a bunch of frames up there. So, while Joe, Sarah, Mike, and Michael watched a movie, I moved art and taped newspaper all over my wall.

How-to Hang a Gallery Wall

So, I started with a random stack of 45 frames and a place to put them. I wanted white frames, but I didn’t want to paint all 45 if I only used 15. So I first created newspaper templates for each of the frames.

Then, using an idea stolen from YHL (Young House Love), I taped the newspaper templates on the wall space I had available. It is much easier to fussily move newspaper clippings than to re-hang a frames. I started with one large frame in the middle and radiated outward from there. Here is the layout I had Saturday night.

I ended up using 28 frames. I then grabbed those out of the bunch and spray painted them. I tried both Krylon and RustOleum Semi-Gloss. I burned up the entire can of Krylon on 9 frames, and I still had to go back and cover them with the RustOleum afterward. One can of the RustOleum covered the other 19 frames. The spray paint trigger handle is amazing for things like this.

Then, I hung frames as soon as they dried. Stealing ideas from YHL again, for each template I found the center of the frame, and measured the drop from the top of the frame to the hanging point. I put the nail at that spot directly over the template.

And then I ripped down the template, leaving the hardware only.

The frame then magically ends up exactly where the template was.

27 repetitions later, I had this.

There’s still nothing but stock photos in most of the frames, but filling them up will be fun. I’m hoping to keep as much of the art free as possible. So far we have a (free) vintage map of our town, and a (free) illustration from our TV manual.

Cost so far:

• 28 frames: $16.80
• Spray Paint: $8.30
• Hardware: Already had
• Total: $25.10

So, less than $1 per frame and about 5 hours. Not bad.