Dining Room Gallery Wall

My husband would be the first to tell you that I have a thing when it comes to picture frames. Our little apartment is littered with them in all of our rooms. I think the only rooms that don't have at least one frame in them is our kitchen and the guest bathroom. Seriously, sitting in our living I can count 9 frames just in this one room.

I think part of the problem is the fact that, once a photo is in a frame, I hate to take it out to replace it with something new. Instead, I find that new photo its own frame and its own home within our living space. I can't be the only one who does this, can I?

Anyways, ever since I had hung up our maps in the guest bedroom I wanted to add some more art on the walls around our apartment, and I thought the dining room was the perfect spot. We had talked about finding a large piece of art for that space, but we're always hesitant to invest a large chunk of change into something without knowing if it'll fit into our next (hopefully more permanent) home. Here's what we were starting out with:

And then it hit me... picture frames! I had a whole box of them sitting in a box in our black hole guest bedroom closet that still needed to be hung up. The best part, they were all black frames. Immediately my mind went to creating some sort of gallery wall using all of the frames. I had seen some on Pinterest that had caught my eye, so I used them for my inspiration.

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What I love most about this one is the fact that they changed things up. Large and small. Matted and un-matted. Chunky and sleek. I also love that they included what I can only guess is the intial of their last name.

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This one is probably my favorite hands down. Again, it has their inital featured within the gallery wall. But it also has some pieces that aren't totally devoted to photos. I'm also realizing that I like the asymmetrical gallery walls more so than the symmetrical ones.

So, now that I had an idea of what I was going for, I took out all of my frames and started laying them out on the floor.

Even the cats joined into on the fun and helped out.

As I was playing around with the frames, I realized I wasn't ready to take the risk of an asymmetrical gallery wall in what was suppose to be our "formal" dining space. I did, however, like the fact that I managed to throw in a couple of frames with matting, and the large circle collage frame (a Christmas gift from my sister) helped it not to look so straight-lined and boxy.

I used a tip that I've seen a million times online to figure out the right placement of all the frames on the wall - newspaper.

After taking the corner shelf with my Willow Tree figurines down and relocating them to our master bedroom, this is what the gallery wall looks like with all the frames up on the wall.

Please ignore the fact that some of the frames don't lay right. I use push pins to hang everything in our apartment, and sometimes the frames just don't sit right on them. Why push pins? Well, I don't think our neighbors want to hear us banging a hammer on our adjoining wall. That, and the fact that you don't really have to patch push pin holes as much as you do nail holes when you move.

When I first snapped these pictures we were still waiting on photos to come in the mail to fill in the large circles in the collage. But now that they have arrived, here's what that frame now looks like.

I love the fact that all of the photos are of the same color tone and that our DIY wedding program fits right in. It's a little personal touch without being overwhelming. Also, if you noticed, I swapped out a black/white photo of my sister & nephew when he was a baby with a photo of our niece and nephews from our wedding.

So that's our gallery wall. Nothing too fancy, but it makes a big impact. Now we're just looking for something to balance out the fish tank on the other side of the wall. We've been looking at options for a small buffet/bar of sorts. I'll keep you posted on what we find.

We're not totally done with the changes in the dining room though. We did a little something something to the lighting fixture. But I'll be back with those details another day. And...I recently changed up the photos that hang above our desk in our office, where I played around a little with an asymmetrical pattern that I'm excited to share with you.

Anyone else love the idea of a gallery wall somewhere in your home? I would love one day to be able to have one going up a staircase like the first inspiration photo above. Any tips on how to make an asymmetrical configuration work and still look elegant? Is there any thing to avoid when putting a wall together, or do you think this is one of those "anything goes" type of project? Would love to hear your thoughts!