I’m always changing things and making little adjustments here and there, so today I’m sharing my latest little update which I think was particularly successful. 🙂 Here’s how to update a tired gallery wall!
Thanks so much to BestCanvas.ca for sponsoring this post!
I think at this point, everyone must have some version of a “gallery wall” somewhere in their home. They were super popular a few years ago and really fun to put together with family photos, pieces of art, and any little hangable found object you could add in there. Of course, trends always come to an end and if you have one of this type of wall decor in your home, you might be starting to feel like it’s looking a bit tired and old. I had a pretty simple version on our kitchen walls, but I felt like even that could use a little freshening-up. Sometimes when you’ve been looking at the same thing for a few years, it can be hard to envision what to do differently, so I thought I might share a few easy tips to update a tired gallery wall and what I’ve done with ours.
My “Gallery Wall” Before
Here’s how my wall has looked for the past few years. I loved the family photos in the white frames. I loved the little watercolour paintings and Kennedy’s night sky painting as well. I loved the round mirror and actually, I still don’t totally mind it, but it was feeling a bit cluttered to me and just, as I said before, “tired”.
Obviously I’ve painted my table since this photo was taken as well!
What I Did to Update my Gallery Wall
Paint
The first thing I did was change up the wall color. Although I still say that this “Zeppelin” color is the perfect medium grey and really goes with absolutely everything, I’ve really been wanting something lighter and brighter lately and I’ve been slowly painting all of my walls white. I went with Benjamin Moore’s “White Dove”, which I’ve just been so in love with over the last month or so and it really warmed the space up as well as made it feel lighter and brighter in here.
White walls are always a good choice if you want something that feels updated, but also classic. I’ve been having a real moment of feeling like it was silly to paint my walls anything other than white for the past little while, and I actually kind of still feel that way. Plus, white is so great for taking photos. 🙂
Another option if you really want something that feels fresh and updated and “now” is to go with a dark and dramatic color on the wall where your gallery wall lives. Dark and dramatic walls are a pretty big trend right now and a fun one, but one I probably won’t be trying any time soon.
Simplify
The next thing I did was to change up the artwork on the walls to something a bit more simple. If your wall is looking cluttery to you, one simple thing to do is to reduce the number of items on your wall, but increase their size as well so that the wall still looks balanced and the proportions look correct.
So instead of three smaller frames on a wall, or two smaller frames and a mirror, I went with just two larger framed pieces on each wall.
Upgrade
I previously just had cheap, off-the-shelf frames from the craft store up on this wall and when I knew I wanted something larger and with a bit more presence, I also knew that the overall product would be better if I upgraded the quality of the pieces I was using as well as the size.
First, I had a bit of a vision for how this was going to come together, so I gave Chris a bit of a challenge and asked him to capture scenes from around our home town that fit into my vision. What I really wanted was photos that represented things I loved about the area we live, but that also kind of looked like the vintage painting prints that I love so much that I’ve been adding in around our house here and there. The photos don’t look like paintings, of course, but they have the same type of coloration, and that’s what I was after. I had specific shapes and colors in mind so we captured some different things that fit in to that: Lily pads, creeks, and a marina, and then edited them to get the colors really softened muted. I can’t believe we pulled it off, actually, but I love them! The colors work so perfectly in our home. 🙂
I worked with BestCanvas.ca to frame the photos out and the whole process was so quick and simple. They have several different options for plain canvases or framed prints in different colors and in all different sizes and I love the way this simple, chunky white frame looks in our home. The uploading and ordering process took about 15 minutes with our slow country internet, and then I had my framed prints in a week! I was definitely impressed. 🙂 If you’re looking to do a framed picture or canvas prints in Canada or the US, Best Canvas is a great, easy option.
I just the love the overall effect in here now. Clean, simple, classic, and personal. 🙂 I can’t see myself getting tired of this version of a gallery wall any time soon.
BestCanvas.ca has also sent over a discount code to make their framed prints even more affordable for The Creek Line House readers! Use the code CREEKLINEHOUSE for an extra 25% off all orders over $50! This discount code is open to residents of Canada and the US as well!
Do you have a gallery wall that you’ve been wanting to update?
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.