Apartment Gallery Wall

My sister Laurel will be starting grad school next week. Since she is planning on staying in the same apartment for the next two years, we finally had the chance to do some fun decorating! (We couldn't do much when she was in the dorms, then she studied abroad, and then was only in her last apartment for 6 months -- not enough time to do much decor.) Last week I drove out to Sacramento to help her put together this gallery wall. I'll walk you through our process here.

The layout of the apartment naturally pushes the majority of furniture towards the wall on the left, which the complex painted an avocado green as an accent:

The wall opposite stretches into a somewhat awkward entry hallway, and also has the door to the balcony on it (as well as leading to the bedroom, bathroom, and linen closets, which you can't see here). With Laurel's furniture, the flow of the room worked the best with no furniture on it. The best way to take advantage of a completely clear wall? A floor to ceiling gallery!

 

We started by laying out the art she already had. She also wanted some shelves, since her small bookcase was already full and she hadn't even bought her books for this semester! After a shopping trip to Home Depot for shelves, as well as stops at Cost Plus and Target to get some more variety in frames, we figured out our composition on the floor. After many tries and lots of rearranging, we finally had something we liked.

The next step was to hang it all up! We started with the larger middle shelf and the painting directly above it. We then moved outwards, readjusting as needed when we got close to the ceiling, or to the thermostat and light switches which we had decided would act as boundaries for the collage.

Laurel's style when it comes to hanging pictures is very different than mine (or Sean's). Sean is an engineer, and very much needs things to line up; I tend to break lines more often but I still gravitate towards more orderly arrangements. Laurel likes things even more random than I do! With the collection of differently styled and sized frames, and so many different finishes throughout the room (yay for second hand furniture!) it really works. We were able to achieve a nice visual balance without any symmetry, and most importantly Laurel loves it!

Next up, Laurel and our mom are going to finish slipcovering her chair (you can see a little bit of it in the bottom of the picture above) and then more fun details for her living room! After looking at Pinterest together we've defined the look she wants for the apartment as "nautical with modern lines" -- basically beach inspired but modern and clean with a good dash of Restoration Hardware inspiration. It's going to be a lot of fun pulling the whole apartment together. Thanks for letting me help you decorate, Laurel!

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