Most gallery wall advice jumps straight to hanging. But the reason gallery walls go wrong is almost never the hanging — it's that the arrangement was decided one frame at a time, on the wall, with a hammer already in hand.
The work happens before anything touches the wall. Get the layout and the spacing right on the floor first, and the hanging becomes a twenty-minute job with no second guesses.
Pick one of three layouts
Almost every gallery wall that works is a version of one of these.
The grid. Identical frames, identical spacing, in even rows and columns. It's the most formal and the most forgiving — because everything matches, there are no judgement calls. Best when your images are a set: the same photographer, the same palette, the same series. A grid of nine small frames reads as one large artwork.
The salon hang. Mixed sizes and frames packed close together, filling a defined rectangle of wall. Looks casual, is actually the hardest to pull off, because the eye needs something holding it together — usually a consistent frame colour or a tight, even gap. Best when you have many pieces of different sizes and want the wall to feel collected over time.
The line. A single horizontal row at eye level, evenly spaced. Understated, works in narrow spaces like hallways and stairwells, and it's the easiest to add to later. If you're nervous, start here.
Choose before you buy frames. The layout determines what frames you need, not the other way round.
The two numbers that matter
Centre height: 145 to 150 cm. The centre of the arrangement as a whole — not of any individual frame — should sit at roughly average eye level. This is the single most common mistake in home gallery walls: everything hung too high. If it feels slightly low as you're marking it, it's probably right.
Gap: 5 to 8 cm. Between frames, consistently. Tighter than 5 cm and the wall reads as cluttered; wider than about 10 cm and the pieces stop being a group and become separate objects that happen to be near each other. Pick one number and hold it everywhere.
One adjustment: if the wall is above furniture, the bottom row should clear the sofa or sideboard by about 15 to 20 cm. Close enough to relate to it, far enough not to look like it's resting on it.
Mixing frames without it looking accidental
The trick is to vary one thing and hold the others constant.
Vary the sizes, hold the frame colour constant — that's the most reliable mix. Or vary the frame material, hold the sizes identical. What doesn't work is varying size, colour, material and orientation all at once, because then there's no through-line and the wall just looks like whatever you had lying around.
Mounts help enormously here. A generous white mount around a small image makes it hold its own next to a much larger frame, and repeating the same mount across mismatched frames is often enough to unify a wall on its own.
Translucent frames are useful in a mix for a different reason: they don't add another solid colour to the arrangement. A floating acrylic frame holds the print between two panes so the image reads as suspended, which means it can sit beside heavier frames without competing with them.
The paper template method
This is the step that separates a gallery wall you're happy with from one you resent. It takes twenty minutes and removes all the guessing.
- Lay every frame out on the floor and move them around until the arrangement works. Photograph it.
- Trace each frame onto newspaper or wrapping paper and cut out the rectangles.
- Mark on each paper cut-out where the hanging point falls — measure from the top of the frame down to the hook or wire when pulled taut.
- Tape the cut-outs to the wall in your arrangement. Use low-tack tape.
- Live with it for a day. Look at it in morning light and in the evening. Adjust freely — it's paper.
- When you're happy, fix through the marked point on each cut-out, then tear the paper away.
The day of living with it is not optional advice. Arrangements that look balanced flat on the floor often don't once they're vertical, and it's much easier to find that out with tape than with holes.
Choosing what actually goes in the frames
A gallery wall of unrelated stock prints looks like a hotel corridor. The ones that feel personal usually mix registers: one or two proper pieces, some photographs, and at least one thing that isn't art at all — a ticket, a postcard, a pressed leaf, a child's drawing.
Limit the palette. If the images span every colour, the wall fights the room. Pulling two or three colours through the set is enough to make a mixed group feel deliberate.
And leave a gap. A gallery wall that fills every centimetre of available wall has nowhere to breathe; stopping short of the edges makes the whole thing look composed rather than crammed.
If you can't put holes in the wall
Two options. Adhesive hanging strips work for lighter frames and are covered in our guide to hanging art without nails. Or skip hanging altogether — a picture ledge lets you stand frames against the wall and rearrange them whenever you like, which is genuinely better if you're still deciding. A slim wall shelf in a long width does this well, and it turns the arrangement into something you can change in seconds rather than an afternoon.
Frequently asked questions
How high should a gallery wall be hung?
The centre of the whole arrangement at 145 to 150 cm from the floor. Not the centre of the top row — the centre of the group as a whole.
How much space between frames?
5 to 8 cm, kept consistent throughout. Consistency matters more than the exact number you pick.
Can I mix portrait and landscape frames?
Yes, and it usually improves a salon hang. Keep the gaps even and let the outer edges of the arrangement form a rough rectangle, and mixed orientations read as intentional.
How many frames do I need?
Odd numbers tend to look more natural in asymmetric layouts; even numbers suit grids. Practically, six to nine is where a gallery wall starts reading as a gallery wall rather than a few pictures.
Should all the frames match?
They don't need to, but something should. Match the frame colour, or the mount, or the sizes — one shared element is enough to hold a mixed group together.