• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Home Tour
    • Master Bathroom
    • Kitchen
    • Kitchen Eat-In Area
    • Family Room
    • Living Room
    • Home Office
    • Laundry Room
    • Master Bedroom
    • Craft Room
    • Dining Room
    • Garage
    • Guest Room
    • Guest Bathroom
    • Patio
    • Powder Room
    • Teen Blue & White Bedroom
    • Teen Boho Chic Bedroom
  • Projects
    • Room Remodels
    • DIY Projects
    • Decorating Tips
    • Cleaning
    • Organizing
  • Subscribe
  • Shop My Faves
  • Instagram
  • About
    • Contact
    • Meet Kris
    • FAQs
    • Media
    • Disclosure
    • Privacy Policy

Driven by Decor logo

menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Home
  • Home Tour
    • Master Bathroom
    • Kitchen
    • Kitchen Eat-In Area
    • Family Room
    • Living Room
    • Home Office
    • Laundry Room
    • Master Bedroom
    • Craft Room
    • Dining Room
    • Garage
    • Guest Room
    • Guest Bathroom
    • Patio
    • Powder Room
    • Teen Blue & White Bedroom
    • Teen Boho Chic Bedroom
  • Projects
    • Room Remodels
    • DIY Projects
    • Decorating Tips
    • Cleaning
    • Organizing
  • Subscribe
  • Shop My Faves
  • Instagram
  • About
    • Contact
    • Meet Kris
    • FAQs
    • Media
    • Disclosure
    • Privacy Policy
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
  • ×

    Updated: Dec 26, 2018 by Kris Jarrett

    Ideas & Inspiration for Filling up Your Bare Walls with Art!

    Thanks so much to everyone who filled out my blog survey this past week – it was great to hear from so many of you! One of the many blog post topics a few of you suggested is to talk about where to get started with a project and find inspiration for it. Great idea! Since almost all of us have at least a bare wall or two in our homes that could use some art, let’s talk about finding inspiration for adding new art to your home (but know that these same tips apply to pretty much any project you’re looking to knock out). post includes some affiliate links – full disclosure statement available {here}

    Where To Find Creative Ideas & Inspiration

    One of the easiest places to find design inspiration is in your mailbox – catalogs like Pottery Barn and William Sonoma Home hire amazing stylists for their catalog shoots and they are full of beautiful, creative ideas! So you can see what kind of things I find, I’ll share the ideas I took away from flipping through my most recent catalogs for about 30-45 minutes. First off, I found this gorgeous gallery wall arrangement from Pottery Barn’s catalog – love it!

    Gorgeous arrangement of art over a console

    Pottery Barn

    It’s pretty unlikely that you’d be able to totally replicate this exact art arrangement since you probably have a different sized media console and art pieces but an image like this is a great jumping off point. It’s super helpful for getting an idea of how many art pieces you might need for a similar space and the balance of larger vs. smaller pieces. Then it’s just a matter of gathering together the art pieces that you already have, figuring out what else you need and planning an arrangement that works for your space.

    This image from William Sonoma Home is another good one to draw inspiration from – they used one large central art piece surrounded by four smaller, identically sized ones. Such a nice simple solution for that above-the-sofa space!

    Great idea for how to hang art over a sofa

    Williams Sonoma Home

    If you’re thinking about creating a gallery wall and want more details on how to plan it out and where to find great art pieces, be sure to check out {this post} from several years back about the design of our home office gallery wall. Also Pottery Barn has a good post with ideas for arranging gallery walls {here}.

    I also came upon this Pottery Barn image and fell in love with this simple idea. Maybe it’s just me but I’m a little leary about what I hang above a bed (especially in my kids rooms) because of fear of what would happen if it fell down. I actually took the glass out of the the frames above my oldest daughter’s bed for this exact reason 🙂 I love the idea of a large lightweight basket – you can’t get much easier than that and the look has a beautiful simplicity to it (you can find this basket on PB’s site {here}):

    Not sure what to hang over your bed? A large, shallow woven basket is a simple, beautiful idea!

    Pottery Barn

    I also found this image of a woven piece above a chest in the Pottery Barn catalog that inspired me. In some rooms (like this one) there are a lot of right angles so something with some curves really helps to break things up and soften the space. I often use a round mirror above a chest of drawers (you can see an example in our master bedroom {here}) but I’d never thought of something like this – I love the softness and texture that it adds to the room:

    Great idea for how to decorate above a dresser

    Pottery Barn

    And how about ideas for art in a kid’s room? PB Teen catalogs are full of them! I love this black and white lacrosse photo collage mural – think about creating your own using your child’s personal photos and a service that creates collage wrapped canvas prints like Zazzle. 

    Great idea for wall art for a boy's room - a cool collage of sports photos

    PB Teen

    This next idea is from Urban Outfitters – I love the way they hung their floral print (available {here}) with two large clips! I’m filing this fun idea away for when we redo my youngest daughter’s room – it’s such a cool look and also makes it easy to swap different art pieces in and out:

    Two large clips used to hang art - so fun and creative!

    Urban Outfitters

    I’m also inspired by this idea from the PB teen catalog of closely grouping together a block of frames in a grid pattern and then adding words on top of them – PB Teen no longer sells these but you can buy similar ones in different sizes {here}:

    Love this idea for art over the bed - artwork in grid with saying layered on top

    PB Teen

    And finally, I love the way {these prints} were hung on the wall using boat cleats and rope don’t you?! I used {this boat cleat} and rope to hang one of the pieces in our home office gallery wall years ago but I like the way they tied their rope much better – great inspiration to switch mine up!

    Love how these art prints are hung with rope and boat cleats

    Pottery Barn

    Where else can you find inspiration? Everywhere you go! Whether you’re on vacation or even taking a walk around your neighborhood, look around you and when you see something that interests you, snap a quick pic to file away the idea for future projects. On our vacation last year, I noticed that one of the restaurants we ate at used boat cleats to hold the bench cushions in place –  it’s such a cute idea for a bench seat but it also got me thinking that it would be a cool look to hang a large horizontal art piece with strips of leather and a pair of boat cleats:

    Cool idea for using boat cleats in home decor

    And a store I was recently in had this fabulous mirror (it was insanely expensive!) surrounded and hung by large wood beads that I thought would be a great future DIY project so it’s another thing I snapped a pic of:

    Round mirror surrounded by large wood beads - love!

    And a final source of inspiration? Blogs of course! 🙂 And I’m not just talking about you, I love getting inspiration from my blogging friends too! If you follow me on Instagram (you can find me on Instagram {here} if you don’t!) you may have seen that a few months back I scored a large gold wall medallion at a local thrift store. I tried it out on the wall going into our dining room and the wall by our kitchen banquette but I don’t think either is the best permanent spot. I couldn’t think of where else to put it until I saw Kelley Nan’s porch makeover (hop over to see her “before” and “after” makeover {here}!) where she used three medallions over the sectional in her outdoor space. Why didn’t I think of using them outside?! I’m trying that pronto!

    Love these gold medallions hung on this wall in this gorgeous outdoor space by Kelley Nan

    Kelley Nan

    How to Organize Your Home Decor Inspiration Pics

    Once you’ve found some inspiring pics, find a way that works for you to keep them organized! For me, that’s through Pinterest (you can follow me on Pinterest {here} if you aren’t already!). One of my Pinterest boards is called “Gallery Wall Inspiration” so I pin all of my inspiration for creating future art walls on that board (you can find my Gallery Wall Inspiration board {here} if you want to snag some of my ideas!):

    Driven by Decor on Pinterest - Gallery Wall Inspiration

    You can even upload your own photos to Pinterest to add to your boards so you don’t have to go searching back through the zillion photos on your iPhone like I usually do… Pinterest is also a great place to find inspiration from other pinners – for example if you’re planning a kitchen remodel you’ll find tons of great ideas on my Kitchen Pinterest board {here} or if you want to spruce up your entry way, I have a Pinterest board for that too {here}.

    I hope you guys found this post helpful in getting you inspired for your next project and that you picked up a few good ideas for hanging art along the way! I’ll see you back on the blog in a few days!

    • Pin
    • Share
    • Email

    Categories: Decorating Ideas Tags: wall art

    ✉️FREE EMAIL SERIES ✉️

    5 Secrets to Reinventing Your Home on a Budget

    Simple tips to instantly transform five rooms in your home!

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. debra @ 5th & state says

      April 22, 2017 at 10:48 am

      hi kris

      i have that mirror in my shop & is not insanely expensive, not cheap but mid road. want one???
      xx
      debra

      Reply
      • Kris Jarrett says

        April 27, 2017 at 5:06 pm

        It’s such a beauty! Thanks for letting me know that you have it – I’ll be in touch if I decide to go for it – I might think about it for a bathroom remodel I’m doing later this year!

        Reply
    2. Jennifer says

      April 22, 2017 at 10:52 pm

      What a great post Kris! You always share such amazing ideas and no one does a gallery wall like you do! xoxo

      Reply
      • Kris Jarrett says

        April 27, 2017 at 5:07 pm

        You’re too sweet to me girl – thanks!

        Reply
    3. Garden, Home and Party says

      April 24, 2017 at 8:47 am

      Kris,
      What a great post. Since we’re expecting a move in the not too distant future I’ll save this and refer to it for the inspiration needed to feather a new nest. I loved the boat cleat idea!
      Great job on finding some really fun inspiration.
      xo,
      Karen

      Reply
      • Kris Jarrett says

        April 27, 2017 at 5:08 pm

        Thank you Karen! A move? How exciting to know you’ll have a new home to decorate!

        Reply
    4. Kelley Nan says

      May 03, 2017 at 12:48 pm

      Kris, so many great ideas. I can get stumped, trying to do a little something different than my standards. Thank you for including me! xoxo

      Reply
    5. Sherry says

      April 19, 2019 at 8:00 am

      For the bead mirror, to make it yourself, where can you buy online the beads that have the hole for a rope, and or the slits precut? The rest looks easy to put together. Also, you say it was crazy expensive in the store. How much was it in the store? Thanks.

      Reply

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Primary Sidebar

    ✉️FREE EMAIL SERIES ✉️

    5 Secrets to Reinventing Your Home on a Budget

    Simple tips to instantly transform five rooms in your home!

    Meet Kris

    Kris of Driven by Decor

    Follow Me

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    All images on DBD are copyrighted and taken by me unless otherwise noted. If you'd like to use any of my images, please request their use via my Contact page.

    I am a participant in several affiliate advertising programs (including the Amazon Associates program) and earn fees from qualifying purchases. For more information, see my full disclosure statement {here}.

    To view my privacy policy, go {here}.

    Copyright © 2023 · Driven by Decor