Dining room update: gallery wall and fun lighting!

Dining room update: gallery wall and fun lighting!

• 5.22.2013

Ah, the art of the gallery wall... I know there are tons of "how to make a gallery wall" tips, from Apartment Therapy to Design Crush, and yet it's always tricky for me. I've had gallery wall areas in our home before, on the staircase at our old house and then our last rental, but the pictures were all pretty crappy quality little photo frames of actually pretty terrible photos, and when we moved into our new house last year I decided I wanted to up the quality.

But, I didn't have enough pictures to make it worth assembling, and worried they would just look random without some pro decorator arranging. The tutorials on how to hang photos in a gallery wall tend to tell you to cut brown paper in the sizes of your frames and tape it around, which does sound very smart, but I wanted to do it without any extra work... my laziness took over. So I opted for the make-your-husband-stand-there-holding-frames-while-you-stand-back-and-squint method.

So anyway, over the weekend we finally hung up some more art in the dining room, in a gallery wall-type of mishmash of frames. I guess I've been leaning toward the funkier, more varied look of a bunch of different shapes and frames, rather than nine Ikea Ribba frames of the same size or whatever. I like that look, too, but am glad I could make the random look work for us!

You'll see a TON of gallery wall inspiration images on my home dec pinboard, collected over quite a while... I guess it's a look I go for a lot. Maybe because it's practical? I mean, who doesn't have more art than we know what to do with, and not enough perfect places to hang just one or two frames. Here's just a few inspiration images of what I'm talking about.

Source: desiretoinspire.net via Suzannah on Pinterest

Source: prettystuff.tumblr.com via Suzannah on Pinterest

Source: gallery.apartmenttherapy.com via Suzannah on Pinterest

Source: theglitterguide.com via Suzannah on Pinterest

So here it is!!

Oh, I also added another fun touch to the dining room... not sure how long these will last, but I hung some white Christmas lights with little white cuphooks, just along the wide back wall of the dining room. It gets sort of dark over there sometimes (which is why I like the mirror in the center of the wall to reflect light), so I figured it could use some help with some cheery little lights. They don't look fab in this photo, with the conflicting blue of the natural light from the windows at 10 in the morning on Saturday clashing with the warm bulbs, but... just so you can see them on.

Always feels good to get a lingering project done! Now that my book manuscript is in I've been shifting back into decorating mode, and have a few more projects in the works around the house! Hint: they involve super classy stenciling and plumbing. Not together. Just sayin'.