Gallery Wall Surrounding the TV

Look who was unable to unearth the camera from the many boxes still piled up in our house!!

Woot woot!

It really is the small victories in life - right??  

Well, I found the camera last night, and snapped a few pictures of the gallery wall in our bedroom this morning before getting ready for work (so ignore my reflection in the TV where I'm in my robe... love that robe btw).

As you can see, I've made huge progress since the last updates I'd posted in my "how to hang a gallery wall" post but while the frames are in place, the gallery wall is far from finished...

Want to know why???

Look closer... 

See it now??  Some of the art is hanging the wrong way... upside down, sideways... and some of it is seasonal from Christmas!  Yep, there is one reading "Deck the Halls" hung upside down.  It drives me absolutely nuts. Sadly, Kris didn't even notice it.  Men!

I'm in the process of pulling together new pieces to hang, that will be more cohesive together.  I want pieces that bring out the pretty blue of the dresser (which by the way photographed REALLY blue, but is more deep teal in real life).  I also want some more color, and lots of bright white.

Some of the prints and paintings will stay... specifically the black and white surf photograph, and a few of the Clare Elsaesser pieces that I still adore.

Originally, I'd been considering spraying all the frames either all gold, all black, or all white, but I'm kind of liking the mix of black and gold...

What do you think?

The two stacked frames in the middle (top) seem a little too thick to me, but perhaps with a wider white matte, and more simple art they won't look so clunky... the pieces that are in there right now are really dark, and next to each other look like too much.

Overall, I'm really happy with how this wall (and this room) is coming together.  It's so light and bright, and the gallery wall takes away from the big looming TV that was the lone ranger on that huge empty wall for so long.

The woven hampers flanking the TV and dresser are also new to the room, fill out the wall, and help us (aka help me) keep all the clothes off the floor.

The hampers are from Target. They are amazing.  A little pricey (roughly $50 each) but worth every penny.  They are out in the room, and the woven texture keeps them from being an eyesore.  I actually think they are really pretty! And not to go on and on about the hampers, but they have these super handy detachable liners, so when it's time to do laundry, you just un-snap them and carry the whole sack to the washing machine.  Genius!

Anyways....

Aside from swapping out the art, and a few of the mattes, I was also thinking that I may also tweak the layout a bit more.

That's the thing about building a gallery wall... you REALLY have to be flexible as you hang up pieces.  You'll find that frames you thought you liked in a certain spot don't look right once they are hung, and that certain spots need something larger, smaller, or nothing at all.  Blank space is as important in a gallery wall as coverage, and slight asymmetry feels purposeful as opposed to aiming for perfect symmetry and having a frame hanging slightly off.  Living with it for a while has really helped me see what I want to move, but it's really minimal.  Remember the original layout plan?

I don't want to say our gallery wall has a completely different layout, but it's definitely different from the original.  There are a few more frames (the mock up didn't take into account scale accurately... both the scale of the frames and the scale of that enormous wall.

To put it in perspective, some of the large frames that look relatively small here are 27"x20"... not small at all!

More pictures to come once we have hung all our new pieces, but I felt I owed you all a little taste of what's been happening in there...

Happy Thursday!
xoxo