We’ve finally done. The entrance gallery wall is finished (at least for now).  But before I tell you all about it, let’s take a peek at how it used to look like:

The console table was from Ikea’s as-is section (we bought it for 50% off) and the red lanterns were also on sale at Ikea. I bought them right after Christmas last year and only the red ones were on sale, because of the color! Crazy, right? We also had two Ikea frames with homemade Home Sweet Home posters leaned against the wall, and a seemingly random long frame on the right. But the truth is, that random frame was the main reason we did the gallery wall. You see, that frame is actually covering our electrical box:

The frame is a standard Ikea Ribba frame that fit perfectly, so we didn’t need to have anything custom made. In fact it was a birthday gift from my friends and I had it lying around until one day it occurred to me that it might be the perfect size to cover the white box… and it was! So anyway, when we started this project, we didn’t actually do it like most people (start from the middle and work your way out taking care to place frames in a balanced way). We had to work with the frame on the right. I also wanted to include some sort of hooks so we can hang our reusable grocery bags, because otherwise we always forget to bring them to the car. Up until now we’ve been leaving them at the door… but I like this new solution better.

After deciding that we needed that long frame on the right and the hooks below them, I started to work on the rest of the arrangement. I gathered the frames we had lying around and took note of the typical sizes of the frames they sell at Ikea. I also wanted to include a couple or so of these mirrors, because they’re so cheap and nice-looking!

Also, I quickly realized that one of the two Home Sweet Home frames had to go because both of them were too big for the space. Other than that, it took a few tries, but in the end I came up with this:

Then it was just a matter of nailing and hammering everything in its place. We used Young House Love’s method of newspapers cut to the size of your frames… I’m happy to say that it worked like a charm, and it didn’t take very long (about 2 hours or so). Here’s when I confess that the wall’s been (almost) finished for three weeks now, except for the hooks. So when I showed you this picture,

it really looked like this:

Basically, we were just missing the hooks. The reason why I didn’t tell you is that making the piece with the hooks was taking longer than expected. It’s a wood board cut to the size of the frame above, and cheap Ikea hooks painted black (to match our hardware). I painted the wood blue, then white on top of it, and sanded it down for a distressed effect and so the blue would show through just a bit. Don’t ask me why, but getting that small piece of wood painted has taken me ages. So now the gallery wall looks like this…

Now let me show you up close some of the other things we hung up on the wall…

We have a round tree branch thingy that I bought in Paris (at a store called Madura). It’s meant to be used as a table centerpiece, but I loved it so much that I put it up there so we can see it better. Plus I like how it’s round, since everything else in the wall is so square. I also filled a small shadow box with white shiny rocks. There’s a couple of postcards my parents brought from Hawaii’s Kona Brewery, more postcards from Chicago, and a black and white photo of the Guggenheim Museum (we do live next to Bilbao, after all!). Some mirrors from Ikea like I already mentioned, and a couple of coasters from Paris as well. The white A is because both of our names start with an A. I’m sure we’ll add more things as we go (we have more postcards from Chicago and Hawaii) but we love it for now. And in case you’re wondering, most of the frames are from Ikea or Zara Home. The wicker baskets are also from Ikea (were else?) and the small stool is from Zara Home. It’s actually really useful to put my shoes on and sometimes even as extra seating for the living room. What do you guys think? Do you like our take on the gallery wall? Does it look like the right long frame is out of place?

What do you think? Share your opinion in the comments.