Simplify Your Gallery Accent Wall Placement With A Kraft Paper Hack

Gallery walls add a striking feature to a room and offer glimpses into the private world of the people who live in a space. From a literal perspective, these accent walls have no moving parts, but it can feel like it if you're a DIYer who's trying to juggle all the pictures and other decorative elements that will make up the gallery. One misplaced item, particularly if it's in the middle of the display, holds the potential to destroy your perfect gallery wall in no time flat.

Fortunately, @100yearsinthemaking on Facebook came up with a genius little hack to make sure that a home's gallery wall isn't made up of a series of errant knaves jockeying their spot on the wall: one long sheet of paper. The paper — similar to this PerkHomy Brown Kraft Paper, from the looks of it — becomes the template on which she plans the picture layout for her accent wall. Because she measures the paper ahead of time, it's perfectly proportioned to the wall it's intended for.

The supplies for the task are pretty low-tech, with the exception of the level. Aside from the butcher paper, the DIYer used pencils, a ruler or measuring tape, pencils, and tape or tacks. Other items for the job included a drill and some screws, though a hammer and nails would work just fine, too.

The DIYer started by cutting the paper to fit the gallery wall, which was in a stairwell. This process was helped along by a level, which ensured that the paper was perfectly even with the moulding of the stairs. The home improvement influencer marked the paper and cut it to fit the wall where the gallery would be hung. This step allowed her to sidestep some of the common picture gallery mistakes. 

Once the paper was measured, she laid it on the floor and placed each picture on the paper. Going this route allowed her to look at the placements to see if anything in the configuration looked out of balance or crooked. Satisfied that the gallery looked correct, the influencer drew the outline of each piece onto the paper. Inside the outline, she also marked where the hanger on the frame was.

Once @100yearsinthemaking completed this part of the task, she hung the paper on the wall with tape. Just a side note: If you're concerned about tape marking up the wall, see if architect's or Pacific Arc Drafting Tape will work here. It may not because the paper might be too heavy, but in many cases, it'll hold up just fine and leave your wall mark-free.

In any case, after @100yearsinthemaking hung the paper template, she drilled holes in the wall where the marks for each of the picture's hangers were on the template. After that, she hung up the pictures, pulling the paper out from under the photo or artwork once it was hung up.

When you're setting up the gallery wall, you don't have to go with a neutral paint color. Adding a coat of paint in a dramatic color like Chinese red or cobalt blue has the potential to make your gallery wall really striking.

Additionally, if your wall is in a location like the stairwell, consider adding mirrors to the display. Aside from adding visual interest, they will reflect the light from light fixtures and natural features like windows. Stairwells can be notoriously dark due to their construction. A mirror or two inserted in the middle of the display corrects that issue without requiring you to hang sconces or other lights (although sconces would be a cool addition to a gallery wall, too).

Finally, if you're interested in creating even more drama in this setup, try mixing up the shapes and pieces a bit. Look for vintage artwork in round frames, put together an interesting shadow box of your child's first year of life, or go with a monochromatic scheme by choosing only black-and-white photos for the gallery. Not only will these pieces stand out from a visual perspective, but they'll also provide in-depth reminders of all the most important moments of your life in one single place.