One of the things many people enjoyed during the pandemic was curating and beautifying their homes. Since people were stuck 24/7 in the same space with the same people, improving their environment helped lessen the tedious routine of being a home buddy. Today, people continuously strive to creatively elevate their spaces from furniture settings to following a theme to apply in their homes.
One of the things people do to give their house an instant facelift is by decorating their bare walls. If you’re an art enthusiast who loves going to galleries, you probably also have the dream of turning your home into a personal art space. Many people dream of doing that; however, the misconception that starting your home gallery is heavy on the pocket stops them.
Here’s an open secret. You don’t need to buy art pieces from museums or auction events to have an “Instagram-worthy” home gallery. Your cameral roll, stationery and art materials, frames, and ideas can help you to get started. But like most advice in life, it can be hard to push yourself to start.
And so, in this article, let’s discuss six simple ways you can try to design your home art and photo gallery.
First, conceptualise the styling of the gallery you have in mind.
One of the undemanding parts of starting an activity is imagining its possibilities. It only starts to get challenging when you finally need to conceptualise the ideas from your head into paper. Unless you have a photogenic and genius mind, you’ll likely need to draw your designs before starting to avoid unwanted mistakes.
Of course, professionals, artists, and creative people don’t really need to do that anymore. But if you’re struggling to start and finalise the design you want, you should take the conceptualising part seriously. Now, how do you start?
Start by looking at photos of wall art galleries online. Then, from the ideas you’ve gathered, start mapping out the placement style and colour theme of the gallery you plan to have.
Second, use your camera roll to your advantage.
People nowadays love taking photos of almost everything that they do. We take photographs of even the simplest moments in our lives. Unfortunately, after taking a shot, most of us often forget to look at the picture or even remember that we have it on our camera rolls.
If you relate to this, here’s a tip. Go through the first photo on your camera roll to the last you have currently. From food shots to pink skies snaps, look for pictures that are aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. You don’t necessarily need one that looks like it was taken by a professional or it’s from a photo printing laboratory. A simple beach shot will do.
Then, you can edit the photos in line with the theme you’re planning.
After choosing the snaps you want to use for your home gallery, it’s time to curate them the way you want to. You already likely have a colour scheme during the conceptualising stage. Now it’s time for you to edit the photos to match the colour theme you want. If you don’t have a colour theme yet, that’s okay.
Instead, you can go back to the design inspirations you’ve seen. Maybe you just need to check and see other people’s home galleries to decide on the colour scheme you want to apply. But if you think editing the photos is too time-consuming and unnecessary, you can also go with its original version.
You might want to play around with the placements of the photos and segregate them by colours instead. That way, even though you don’t have a colour theme, your photos are styled coordinatedly.
Fourth, have the photos printed in a photo printing shop.
Now, if you have a printer at home that can print large prints, you might want to skip this point. But if you don’t have one, I suggest bringing your photo files to a professional photo printing shop.
If you’re still unsure of the size of the photos, take the opportunity to ask the photo printing shop about it. They’ll likely give you tips on what size would best fit your plan. Ask them about the best type of photo finish that would complement your walls, too.
You might want to choose one to three photos that you’d like to use as centrepieces. You can take this moment to inquire about wall mounting and finishes since photo printing shops are offering wall decor services. Again, you don’t need to have all your photos printed glamourously. If you have other ideas for your photos, then go for them.
Fifth, choose frames that will match your theme.
After printing the pictures in the right size and finish, it’s time to find them a home. If you had one or two photos printed as a wall decoration, you might want to choose frames that will complement them. Sometimes, all you need is a beautiful frame to do the talking for the photo.
When choosing a frame, take note of whether it will complement your wall or not. Don’t be afraid to play around with textures and patterns, too. If you think the photos you have are lacking, you can use striking picture frames to do the magic.
It would be helpful to take note of your home furniture, too. If the colours, designs, and patterns in your house are too bold already, you might want to tone down the colours and finishes of the frames. Finding the balance between these things would help a lot.
Lastly, add some wall accent decors for a homey feel.
Last but not least is to add wall accent decorations to your wall gallery. You can add illuminating decorations like mirrors to a black and white theme gallery. Some glittery wall shapes and arts would be beautiful, too.
You could add seashell decorations and surfboards to your wall to match your beach photos. Or if your theme’s about food, you could add some hanging utensils to make the wall playful. Feel free to play around with wall decors and photos.
Curate a home gallery that creatively tells your story.
There’s no perfect or right way to design a home art and photo gallery. Seeing too many tips and tricks might confuse you and your ideas. But hopefully, these six simple ways were able to help you curate a gallery that you like. A gallery that creatively and uniquely tells your story through photos and your choice of decorations.
About the author:
Bianca Banda is a writer for DS Colour Labs Ltd (DSCL), a professional photography lab that offers a vast range of products and services for photo and print needs.
