Last year during the initial 2 week lockdown, we didn’t really do any home updates/house work but I did sketch out a gallery wall for our entry way. I decided I wanted to make DIY frames for canvas prints, then chose the overall theme of the photos, and what the gallery wall set up would look like. I measured the wall and measured out different frame sizes and once I was ultimately happy with the design, I ‘framed’ it out with painters tape on the wall. The next step would be to choose the photos we wanted printed to canvas and order the canvases.
One year and a couple months later, that gallery wall is finally all complete!
Yes, it seriously took that long for a gallery wall to be completed! If you do not know, canvas prints are actually very expensive. We wanted 5 photos and 2 of the canvases are larger sizes. Those can easily be over $100 or even $200 each and I was not about to spend over $500 for printed canvases. I searched high and low (online) of places that had good quality canvases as well as good prices. I found Canvas On Demand and decided to give them a try. I first purchased two 16x20 canvases. They were having a sale for that size and the canvases were $20 each…an absolute steal for canvas prints. I waited a bit to order the larger ones because the prices for them were still pretty steep. Well months passed and it must have been a combination of the prices stopping me from ordering the others and me just forgetting.
Then Fall 2020 came and I said I just need to bite the bullet and order the final canvases. Canvas on Demand no longer allows custom sizing so the sizes I measured out for our wall did not fit within any of their listed sizes. So the search for other decently priced canvas printers continued. I finally found a place in January 2021 and ordered the remaining 3. To be honest, we do not like them anywhere near how we like the Canvas On Demand prints. They don’t seem to be as well made, they are SUPER heavy, and the photo prints aren’t as crisp as the original two purchased. So if you do want canvas prints, go with Canvas On Demand when they have a sale!
When I was designing the gallery wall in my head, I pictured photos we’ve taken when traveling. The issue with displaying photos, in my opinion, is that from a design stand point, every photo could have completely different colors, not ‘vibe’ with one another, and look cheesy or tacky when put next to each other. That’s where I thought that soft black and white photos with a simple light wood, beachy frame would look best. The travel photos I would choose would all have something to do with water to keep with our coastal farmhouse/coastal cottage home.
We went through photos we’ve taken with our phones, DSLR, and GoPro, then I edited all the possible options in Lightroom to be black and white. We wanted every photo to be of a different place but it would still have to look good in black and white. We chose 4 photos of places we’ve traveled to: a photo of us swimming in the Aegean sea during a day of boating when visiting Santorini, the over the water bungalows we stayed in on our honeymoon in Taha’a, French Polynesia, the scenic drive along the 17 mile drive in Monterey, CA, and fishing in one of the most special places in the world to me, Deep Creek Lake, MD. The last photo isn’t a travel photo but it is at the beach in Manasquan, NJ which is the town next to our town and where we got engaged.
The sizes I measured for the layout were, 2 at 16x20, 1 at 12x30, 1 at 12x24, and 1 at 6x8. Since I measured out the sizes for the gallery wall before I ordered them, the smallest one (6x8) was difficult to find and I actually couldn’t find any retailer who printed that size canvas. I figured I could squeeze in an 8x8 into that space and we were able to make it work. That is the only size that was slightly changed from the original layout.
The wood frames around the canvas prints are an easy DIY! I wrote an entire how-to on the DIY frames and even have a quick Instagram reel about the process! Something I didn’t keep in mind or take into account when measuring the layout was the thickness of the frames. Make sure there is enough space between the photos with the frames and not just the size of the canvas. If you have any other gallery wall tips and tricks, I’d love to hear them!
Don’t forget to pin the blog post to help inspire you when making your next gallery wall!
