How to Create a Hallway Gallery in Six Simple Steps

I have a serious obsession with taking photos. I adore capturing memories as we make them, so it’s no surprise that our home is filled to the brim with pictures! We literally have them in every room of the house, arranged either in a “Gallery wall” style display, in swanky but savvy chrome finished photo frames propped up all around or in collage style boxed frames, proudly placed for all to see.

This is my favourite way to display photos. Click here to recreate the look.

We recently modernised our hallway and stairs. Gone are the deep mahogany banisters that had probably never been touched since the house was built and the ever so ugly brown walls I’d stupidly chosen in my haste to banish all the original magnolia ones!

I have absolutely no idea why I initially thought brown was a good colour for a hallway, is brown a particularly inviting colour? Does it say “welcome, please come into our happy home”? No it’s dull, old-fashioned and drains the light and life for that matter out of every room it’s used in. It’s safe to say I’m not a fan of brown in Interiors.

Realising the error of my ways, I decided this time around we’d opt for a light, bright, much softer colour to create the illusion of space and light. We have quite a narrow hallway and so this was really important.

We chose Dulux Polished Pebble link which was just the right shade of grey to compliment our already grey living room and newly painted bright white banisters.

Before:

After:

Whilst we were happy with our new fresh looking hallway it was in need of a few personal touches, photos to be precise. It needed it’s own display of darling family shots.

As hallways tend to be long, thin, all sorts of shapes really creating a gallery wall is not quite as straight forward as to what it would be on a straight wall.

I’ve put together six simple steps that really helped us achieve our desired finish.

Step One: Inspiration

I’d really advise going straight to trusty Pinterest to find inspiration of hallways similar to your own.

Type in key words like “narrow hallway decor ideas” or “Hallway Gallery”.

Once you’ve pinned a few that you love and I always screen shot them and transfer them into a collage. These are my “mood boards” I’m always referring to. I had them for every design aspect of our home before we moved in. They kept me focused on the style we wanted to achieve as well as giving me my daily dose of inspiration (I’m someone who really does see a beautifully arranged wall of photos and instantly feel happy!)

My original mood board

Above images sourced from Pinterest

Step Two: Choosing The Frames

Once your happy with your dream mood boards, it’s time to make them a reality. Hit the shops and find frames that not only fit your vision but your budget too.

We chose Ikea’s Ribba Framesas I love the built in borders they come with.

To recreate our exact gallery you will need the following:

Four 6×4

Three or four 5×7 (one to go above the last frame if you prefer)

Two 23×23 cm

Two 50×70 cm

I recommend going into store to purchase your frames, this way you can ensure each one is in immaculate condition.

Step Three: The Layout

Getting the layout right is crucial to the overall look and feel of your gallery. What works best for us is to lay each frame out on the floor one by one just underneath the space where your gallery will be hung.

We played around with lots of different layouts before deciding on the finished look, creating our canvas on the floor meant no nails were prematurely hung in haste leaving horrible holes to fill, nor did we have the hassle of cutting out various size pieces of paper!

Step Four: Fixing it to the wall

Wall plugs are an absolute must when it comes to hanging frames on the stairs.

They ensure your pictures are fixed in the exact place you want them preventing any possible nasty accidents, after all no one wants a frame falling on their head whilst they’re walking up the stairs!

It’s also imperative that at this stage you stick to your agreed lay out. Don’t be tempted to change it once the frames are on the wall, trust your first instinct and stick to your guns.

Step Five: Selecting Your Style

To create a sophisticated seamless finish for our gallery wall we opted for classic black and white photos.

For me this complimented the colour of our new hallway and the white frames beautifully.

Whilst I love colourful pictures in our living room gallery, I found that using them on the stairs can make the space appear a little chaotic looking and not as neat as I’d of liked.

The array of black and white photos I feel gives it a timeless but modern touch, exactly what we were looking for.

Step Six: Positioning Your Pictures

A little like an aesthetically pleasing, perfectly positioned Instagram grid you want to arrange your photos with precision.

It’s always all about the overall look and yes whilst each photo is a beauty in it’s own right, the overall feel and layout of the gallery is the most important part (again very much like the ideal Insta feed).

No two of the same should be on top of or next to each other. Mix it up to keep the wall alive, for example a family shot next to one of me and Scott would look much better than it being placed next to another shot of just Scott and I.

Keep it flowing nicely along the whole wall, think of it like an art exhibition showcasing your family life.

Et voila, our vision is complete!

I’m absolutely over the moon with how our hallway gallery wall turned out! I’m just on the hunt for a circular mirror to live right at the top of the stairs, then I can officially say “Project Hallway” is complete!

Happy hallway loving!

Love,