Gallery Wall Layout

While we are on the topic of a gallery wall, I'm starting to collect the pieces I'd like to hang together, gather frames that work well with one another, and work on a layout that will look organized without being perfectly symmetrical.  Thank god I didnt' decide to just start hanging things... I can just imagine trying to do a large gallery wall without at least a little planning...

This is what we are working with... a big empty wall.  Let's get a good "before" here...

I cringe to even look at this picture, but this is what our living room looked like almost a year ago when we moved in - this was taken just after Christmas, so we'd been there for just about one month by this point.  The wall behind Kris' sad little love-seat is big... REALLY big... and this picture does a good job of showing how much empty space there is.

If there were a title for my life, it would be called, Making Do With What You've Got - and I have gotten pretty good at it!  While I'd love two new sofas (instead of two old, mismatched, and very uncomfortable love-seats) it just is NOT going to happen right now.  Banishing the idea of a new sofa, my goal is to distract from what I don't like with things I love.  Since these love-seats are smaller and lower to the ground, this means that I have even more wall to work with - if we were to replace the black love-seat with a sofa, this gallery wall might need a bit of adjusting, but since a new sofa is a very distant purchase on the "want" list, I think this gallery wall will be intact for some time.

Now that we've got a really good "before" pic (aka, a really awful photo that makes any improvements I've done look AMAZING) let's take a look at what the wall looks like now.

We may or may not have one or two unpacked boxes shoved in the back of my closet, but I couldn't stand looking at a huge blank wall, so a few months after moving in, I hung a few pictures on this sad, empty wall!  It currently looks like this...

This is the best photo I can find to illustrate how the wall looks now.  There is a trio of black and white photos hanging (even though this photo only captures two of them) and as you can see, the room is a far cry from last January.  The addition of curtains, coordinated throw pillows, and a new rug made a HUGE impact on what had been an empty shell of a room.  That said, you can still see that despite having a few frames on the wall, they are hung too high, and are just too small for the space (also, I realize after posting this that the frames are STILL crooked... I tried!!)

This photo shows the wall from another angle - excuse the horrid lighting.  The wall needs some love - it's as simple as that.

Since it's clear that I am not so great at hanging frames symmetrically, I am looking for a layout where I can have staggered frames of varying sizes while keeping a somewhat organized look and feel.  I searched online for some gallery wall layouts (why reinvent the wheel, right??) and I found none of them helpful.  Thanks for nothing Pinterest!

So, in an attempt to be resourceful, I started working on my own layout.  I have most of the frames I plan on using already, so taking their measurements, I began playing around on the floor of the living room.

This is what I ended up with after a few tries...


Eh... I wasn't loving it.  I think I definitely need a couple more frames to round it out, so I turned to my computer to start mapping the wall out...

This is what we have right now...

CURRENT LAYOUT:

I'm not going to continue to beat a dead horse... three frames = too small for large wall... moving on

UPDATED LAYOUT:

I like that even though these frames are different sizes, having the four smaller frames on the bottom row still make this feel balanced and symmetrical.

I have one large piece that I'd like to hang as a portrait, but it's large... in order for it to be hung vertically, the largest frame would need to move, so I played around and came up with this...

UPDATED LAYOUT II:

Again, I like it, but want to feel 100% confident before putting more holes in the wall.  Now for the fun part... choosing all the art!

Stay tuned for updates!!