Creating a gallery wall was always something my client wanted to do in her last home but putting all those holes in a rental??? No way. But now that it's HER house?? She decided it was time to make it happen. And if her husband said anything about it? Well, I'd set him straight. Her husband may seem scary at 6'9" but after all, he's still MY son. Yea...so this "client" isn't just any ole client. Maybe she is slightly more special than the rest. And that's no offense to my other clients but this one happens to be my daughter in law.

One Saturday afternoon, on a cold January day in Canada when we wouldn't dream of spending more than 5 minutes outside, Emily and I took on this gallery wall project and honestly, I don't think it took us more than a couple of hours. Now...the men were doing a job we really didn't want to help with so...did we take a little longer so we wouldn't have to help with some gross awful job? Maybe. But let's say you can plan on it taking no more than a couple of hours if you have all the pieces to your gallery wall. Now you can tell your men you need the day and perhaps you throw in a bottle of wine and some Netflix so you get away with not helping them too? We won't tell.

So how did we do it? Well, after we laid the pictures out on the floor and chose the pattern we both liked, we got ourselves some scissors and some newpaper...a little tape and a level. Now...did we use the level as much as we should have? No. But I've always said my eye is better than any level anyway. Don't look too close...you might notice that they aren't perfect. But honestly, we weren't going for perfect. After all, that's why we chose an assymetrical pattern!

After we had the prints all laid out, we grabbled some newspaper and cut out a template of each frame. We numbered each frame and template as a pair and then taped up the newspaper on the wall. We were sure to put the other pieces in place before we began...like the lamp and that annoying pampas grass (that the cat destroys on the regular but is so dang cute it will stay right there until is officially DEAD.)

TIP: You need to be sure you don't accidentally hang a frame too low right behind the lamp and then later have to move it up. That would just be stupid and poor planning. And then you'd have to hope that the extra hole you made was covered by frame again. Phew. Glad we are great planners and that didn't happen to us. Who are we kidding...my son will never read this so ok...it did and there happens to be a couple extra holes but no one will ever see them!

But I digress.

After we had the pattern carefully taped up on the wall, we brought the actual frames up to figure out exactly where the "dodad" for hanging them up on the wall was. What is that thing called??? Dodad hanger upper will work. We marked it on the newspaper template and then...here is the genius part...we put the screw right through the template like we were some experts doing this gallery wall and voila! Hung the dang frames up and it was seriously cute. We added the books and the baskets and stood back and marvelled at our achievement.

What's the moral of the story? Well if you want to avoid doing some awful job and dream of putting up a fantastic gallery wall just you and your friend? You can do it. We are here to tell you. It can be done. It's not so hard. Get yourself some newspaper, tape, drill, and level is optional. Make yourself a plan and go for it.

If you mess it up too bad? There's always crackfill. Good luck!