Reinvented Gallery Wall

Remember a few years ago when gallery walls were all the rage, and flooding our Pinterest pages? I was on the train (and still am!), and love being able to display family photos in an artistic way. But when we moved I didn’t have a wall that seemed like the appropriate home for the gallery I already had.

After I published the bunk room blog, it struck me how the space still felt sparse in the photographs. But when I was in the space it felt good(just not finished)! It needed more layers. 

The color palette from the bunk room came from Laura Park pillows that are on each of the twin beds. To reinforce that color palette I decided to replace the white mats in our gallery wall frames with colorful mats based off the color pallet in the pillow. I love the photos of our family in these frames, and those are memories I want our girls to be reminded of constantly. The colorful mats make these moments a little more playful, while still adding the color and drama this space needed. 

This is such a responsible way to repurposed frames you already love, and give them a second life! If you are local, I went to the Chalet (my local framing store), and brought the pillow I used as inspiration with me. I knew how many rows and columns I had in the gallery. So when we were selecting mats, I knew how many of each color I wanted. Then we pulled various shades from the pillow for the new mats. I chose 4 coordinating colors and repeated the colors three times to keep it from getting too busy.

Before we hung the refreshed gallery wall, we laid it out on the floor to make the final decisions. Which color would go where in the grid and also spreading out the pictures evenly of the family! And Ta-Da! A gallery wall for the bunk room was created that added the splash of color and whimsey I envisioned in the space. This is just another great example of the collected layered look I absolutely adore!