Finished Gallery Wall

A while ago, I had the idea to make a gallery type wall above my couch. I cut out a variety of sizes of picture frames out of newspaper (I called them "mock pictures"), and hung them on my wall with painter's tape. I spent a couple of days moving them around, trying to get a good configuration of what I liked. Then I ordered my frames. I had shopped around a lot for a good price on frames, and found the best deal for all of them was from Ikea, even after the cost of having them shipped to me. They came with mats, and I was able to order different sizes, since I like everything to be all match-y.

Once the frames came, I used the newspaper cutouts and marked where the holes are on the original frames, and used the newspaper to measure, then had my husband put my nails in the wall. Once the nails were in, I ripped off the newspaper frame.

After those were done, I got access to my wedding pictures, so I ordered my photos (I always seem to find the best deals and coupon codes from Snapfish, I love them!). My prints came the next week, so I put them in the frames and hung them up! It definitely was a lot of waiting for the impatient me!

Now, I will talk about this for a minute. It is very far from perfect. The pictures are not evenly spaced apart, the smaller ones do not match up perfectly in a line like I wanted. However, I knew this project was going to end up like that, to be honest. I had a really hard time measuring, re-measuring, and measuring again. The newspaper looked good and lined up, but the frames... not so much.

My husband and I fiddled around with this wall for hours one Sunday, and I refused to put any more holes in the walls to get them perfect. So, I'm learning to be fine with the imperfections. I may go back later and maybe secure the smaller ones better with Command strips, because with our upstairs neighbor stomping up the stairs, and Amelia bumping into the wall, they sometimes get nudged sideways, making them uneven. It has been a struggle, walking by and straightening them out several times a week. I was trying to avoid the strips, because they are obscenely expensive for what I need - but I am starting to think I may have no choice!

But all things considered, they turned out better than I expected them to be. I like to think that you can't see the issues with them unless you try to look for them, but I'm not sure that is true. LOL!