Large Gallery Wall for the Win

Our gallery wall is one my fave DIYs.  Before this wall, I didn’t have any photos of our family, not on the walls or the fridge.  Mostly because  I wanted a minimal clean look on my walls, end tables, consoles and refrigerator.   I have been wanting a gallery wall for a long time.  So, I put all my eggs in one basket and went big by creating this large statement feature wall.

Below is the “before” picture of our gather room. No, that’s not an actual name of a type of room.  But we had this enormous “gather” sign I made, so that is what we all called it.

This room is already the darkest room in the house. Although there are two windows,  it sits on the side of our house, between the neighbours’ house, and gets such little light. Since lighting is limited in this room, I chose a semi gloss so the light would hit the black wall.

I started by painting in between the shiplap first. At first, I tried to use a roller, but it was just skimming over the cracks of the slats and it wasn’t getting in between.  Then I painted the whole wall in two coats of Black Pepper by Sico paints. I’ve listed the paint colour in my materials used.

Once I painted the shiplap, the next step was to stain the shelves. I used Minwax Stain & Polyurethane in Classic Oak. It is a very light stain, but would look different on various wood.

For the shelves, I used 2×8 poplar and had it cut 6 feet in length. The poplar is a bit pricier, but I really fell in love with it. We used Ikea shelf brackets, and I gave those the same stain as the shelves.  I used a total of 12, 3 on each shelf. I bought the shelf brackets at Ikea Sandshult.

We spaced the shelving 18″  apart, knowing already that my frames were 8×10.

The wall turned out great, and makes a real nice statement for an otherwise boring room, and we now have pictures of my family all in one space.  As usual, if you have any questions, send me a message on Instagram.  I’d be happy to help.  And if you try this project, I would love to see it, tag me on Instagram

Next on the blog, I am creating a concrete wall for my basement  @tanglewood_homes