For years I knew I wanted a big gallery wall in our living room, but every time I started thinking about it I’d feel paralyzed on where to start. You see…I’m a perfectionist. I wanted all of the frames to match and to be evenly spaced and have the same number of black and white and colour prints. My brain likes symmetry and order. But then last year on a whim I ordered a MASSIVE (30×40″) canvas of one our family photos we had taken in Hawaii last year. I sort of had an idea of where I wanted it to go, but once I put it there, I didn’t like it at all. Well, shoot….now what?

After thinking about it for a few weeks, I decided now was the time to get out of my head and get the gallery wall I wanted up on the wall. I dug through our basement and found all of our extra frames (you see….I have a slight problem with hoarding frames) and put them all on the living room floor. Then I arranged and re-arranged until I liked how it was looking. I even stood on a big ladder so I could see it from above and get some perspective. I didn’t worry about the spacing or the colours, and instead only focused on keeping the top, bottom and sides even.

What I ended up with was a gallery wall that I am ABSOLUTELY in love with. It’s eclectic and has visual interest, but is cohesive enough to keep my brain happy.

Some of the prints are iPhone photos, some are by other photographers (the canvas photo is Allison Gipson and top left is Alyssa Groves), and some are my own. I have frames from Ikea, from Wal-mart, and from Artifact Uprising. My point though is that sometimes you just have to stop overthinking it and get those images UP ON THE WALL. I promise you, you won’t regret it. It doesn’t have to be a big investment, and by using mostly framed prints that aren’t too big, you can change the images out regularly. If you’re scared to invest in really large prints, you can even print black and white images at Staples as engineering prints for under $20 each and then pop them in Ikea poster frames. Is the quality amazing? No. But it’s good enough.

Not into a gallery wall like this? Here are a few more simple ideas (all via Pinterest):

In need of some new family photos to make a gallery wall of your own? Fiddle Leaf Photography offers in-home lifestyle family and newborn photo sessions in Edmonton and the surrounding communities of Sherwood Park, St. Albert, Leduc, Beaumont and Fort Saskatchewan. Shoot me a message today and we’ll talk about how to make this happen for you.

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