5 Gallery Walls That Work for Type A People

I enjoy a good gallery wall—I just don’t want the usual jumbled iteration of one in my house.

That’s because, while I can appreciate the joy of a haphazard collection of frames elsewhere, in my own space, visual clutter turns into mental clutter: I like a little order in my disorder.

Luckily, the solution is simple: Add a little order to your gallery wall.

With my arrangement (shown below) I used an imaginary horizontal line to break up the collection of artwork and create some organization—just a bit, not too much. You’ll notice that not everything lines up perfectly on that horizontal line, and there are a couple outliers to add interest.

If the horizontal line isn’t for you, there are a few other ways to give your gallery wall some sense:

• Create a border to constrain the size and shape of your grouping. Use painter's tape to mark off a rectangle or square on your wall and use that as an exterior border to neatly confine your grouping.

• To keep the arrangement really visually calming, stick with a similar color palette for all of the artwork and frames—bonus soothing points if the color is a neutral one.

• Organize your gallery wall with a grid pattern, by using all the same size frames.

• Mount shallow shelves in orderly rows, then lean art of all shapes and sizes on them (which makes for easy re-arranging, too!).

Tell us: Where do you like to have a little order in your disorder?