Struggling with wall decor? This guide provides ideas to solve problems with your wall decor, offering different ways to think about it, and sharing easy DIY ideas for home decor, including thrifting hacks for unique wall art.

Understanding Wall Decor

Wall decor: what is it? It’s something that many people spend a lot of time worrying about. It’s a common design conundrum. This guide aims to provide some real good ideas that will help problem solve what might be off with a wall you’re trying to fill.

Beyond Picture Frames: Adding Dimension

One of the biggest things people overlook with their wall decor is how to add dimensionality – something sculptural, something more 3D than just frame, frame, frame, frame, frame. The room starts falling flat if you don’t. Consider incorporating sculptural objects. For example, a very pretty decorative wooden duster can be hung on a wall specifically because it adds dimensionality. You want that variety of depths.

Another great way to bring in depth variation with your wall decor is shelves. You don’t have to go with a basic shelf; you can find a shelf that is truly a piece of art, a sculpture in itself. You don’t need a ton of these; if you get one really beautiful shelf, it can be a piece of art in itself.

If you’re really committed to macrame, consider hanging some actual tapestries. Sometimes you see really lovely handwoven rugs, tapestries that are really works of art in themselves. The reason why a tapestry or a framed rug can be fun is because they solve the problem of planes. A lot of times when you look around a room, all artworks are hung at the same height.

Advice is often given that art should be hung at a certain height off the floor. However, having art hung all at one height just feels very flat. We want to work in depth and also want to have variation in height. If you’re looking around your space and it’s all at this level, something that can break it up in a really great way is having a long piece. These things can get expensive, so a hack is just picking out a wallpaper that you love. You can buy one roll of wallpaper, and that is going to be so much more affordable than saving up for the giant artwork.

Getting something like that framed with a mat around it can be a beautiful way to break up the monotony of all the art kind of hung at the same height. Hanging art so low to the ground that it surprises people can also create visual interest. There are no rules. Consider how you can break the rules of how art has to be, which is going to bring a lot more depth and layering to your space.

Wall Treatment and Negative Space

It’s very easy to get lost in just wall decor, buying more wall decor, hanging more wall decor, and you might have overlooked actually considering how you want to treat the wall itself. Consider adding texture in some way. It might not be that you need more wall decor up there if you just go and add a grasscloth wallpaper, or peel and stick versions of bead board. Something that adds a little texture to the wall is going to take care of a lot of the work, and then you can hang an artwork or two up there. The same goes for adding wall moldings, picture frame moldings, things like that. As soon as you get that up on the wall, just a little bit of interest, a little bit of variation and texture, that takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

In a bedroom, something you can do behind the large empty wall behind your bed that’s easy, simple, and impactful is just doing a little picture rail and painting the rail and beneath it. That adds color, it adds dimension, it breaks it up into sections, and you can hang up a little frame and call it a day.

Something that’s really important to think about, though, that you might have overlooked with your wall decor, is where are you giving the eye a break? You need a palette cleanser, otherwise it can be overwhelming. If there’s too much clutter, too much going on, then everything that is on the wall loses a little bit of its potency. When you leave the negative space and leave room for a break, that negative space around your wall art actually becomes the frame. Think of that as the macro frame for your art, and the frame is important because it draws attention and an anchor to the artwork.

Dealing with a Giant Empty Wall

One of the biggest stumpers is what to do with that giant empty wall. Of course, you can always go with a giant artwork.

Another really easy way to hack your way to more affordable giant artworks is doing sets, like two large sets, three large sets, that can span the length of your wall, but they don’t have to be one continuous thing. Framing a wallpaper sample that you love can work well. Thinking about sets or trios can be a really good way to fill that up.

Alternatively, the best thing you can do to fill up a big wall is break it into sections. The thing that makes this big empty wall the most difficult is that there’s literally nothing breaking it up. You don’t have to go and add molding to your wall to break it up. Another thing you can do is break it up using taller pieces of furniture. You might be able to divide the wall up with paint. Thinking about any way you can break up the space into sections visually is going to make your job so much easier.

Gallery Walls

Gallery walls are a trend, and there’s a bunch of different ways you can do a gallery wall. One of the ways to do a gallery wall is to have everything lined up at right angles, all the corners matching up in different ways. One of the ways that works is by doing what designer Rita Kig calls “cutting off the highways,” so the spaces, the alleys, the highways as she calls them in between your frames, make sure they’re always interrupted. It’s going to make it feel more eclectic and a little less overly manicured. What’s great about that is things don’t have to be precise, but the key here when hanging that gallery wall is to keep those highways, even if you’re breaking them up, keep them moderately the same width so that the streets themselves are the same width even though you’re interrupting them with lots of turns.

There are many tools and services that help you hang a gallery wall, but you can also simply measure by hand, using your finger. If it’s off, take it out and move the nail a little bit. Yes, this leaves more holes in your wall behind the frames. The endeavor of hanging a gallery wall should be fun. You should experiment, and you have the opportunity to surprise yourself, to hang something up in a wonky way that you then realize you actually really like.

The biggest thing is to try and stay away from leaving the pieces too spaced out. You lose the tension, you lose the energy, and it just starts to feel a little scattered. It is preferable to keep them a little closer together.

Mixing It Up

We need to bring in some variations. Something that can help break up all the frames is mixing in a mirror, mixing in a weird color frame. A pop of a weird color frame doesn’t have to match your decor and can be a piece of art on its own. A trend of folded ribbon put up on the wall is also something original, unique that can be free form organic shapes to break up all the rectangles of your frames and something that pops out of the wall. You can do this also with items from nature that you’ve collected on trips, of course with plants. That’s why plants are great on the wall because they bring a little bit of dimensionality and a little bit more of an organic shape.

Saving Money on Wall Decor

To save money on wall decor and still have custom pieces, number one is framing postcards. Museum gift shops, travel gift shops will have beautiful designs. Just putting it in a thrifted frame makes it special. Pressed flowers also create beautiful pieces of artwork. You can arrange them all different ways. Taking a little plant from trips, pressing it in a book, and framing it in a custom frame creates a little momento from your trip that doesn’t cost much.

Speaking of frames, you can make a custom frame with any print, any wallpaper you can find.

DIY Frame Craft

To cover a frame, lay wallpaper down face down. Turn it over to the front side, flipping it over and pulling it tight. Rub out the inevitable wrinkles that will form, pulling it tight. Cut off the excess, finishing wrapping the rest around, pulling it tight. Cut off the excess corners, slicing it open with an X-Acto blade, leaving a little extra so you can wrap it around. Fold this excess in, tucking and pressing, keeping it tight. Put a layer of Mod Podge on top to seal it. While that dries, you can wallpaper the mat.

Final Thoughts

The most important thing you can do when trying to problem solve your wall decor is figure out what subconscious rules and restrictions you’re working within and how can you break out of them. What feels unacceptable to do? Those little surprises are what is going to breathe life and interest into your space. It’s nice to have things cohesive, but when they get too cohesive, too matchy matchy, it actually falls flat and nothing feels that potent or interesting. Experiment and be okay with taking things down after a few weeks if you don’t like them.

You can find low-cost hacks and wall ideas in the video below to make your home look expensive!