How To Make A Renter Friendly Gallery Wall With This Ikea Hack

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Since moving to Germany, I have experienced a million new things. New ways to buy groceries or pay bills. New travels and methods of transportation. But in the midst of all of this, I also have been learning how to live in an apartment. In the past, I have lived in rental homes and college dorms, but never had fully experienced apartment living with all of its glorious pros and cons. Not having a yard to mow or gutters to clean is both freeing and slightly saddening all at the same time, but on the whole, apartment life has been enjoyable. One of the most challenging aspects though (beyond the required stairs to our fourth floor apartment or the unique courtesy rules surrounding laundry and dishes), has been learning how to make a space that is cozy and personal without being permanent. How do you invest in a space to feel like yours knowing that it will only be for a couple of years and you want to cause as little damage as possible? Compared to the general standard of German living in which it is common to stay in the same apartment for decades, our stay looks incredibly temporary and we want to be sure we leave our apartment as nicely as we found it. Seeing this, I set out to create a unique, but budget and renter friendly solution to add charm and character to our new home, so here are my favorites ways for how to make a renter friendly gallery wall with an awesome Ikea hack.

Why A Gallery Wall?

Now, as you look at these pictures you might be wondering why a gallery wall instead of bookshelves, seating or additional storage? When thinking about designing our apartment, I considered a couple of items. First, as the top floor, most of our ceiling follows the rooflines which lead to small half height walls. With this wall being in the center of our apartment (separating our entry from living space), it is one of the few that would be large enough to have a gallery wall or any large art. Even beyond this though, Charlie (who is almost 6’4”) requested that I not obstruct this tall walkway between our kitchen, dining and living space with furniture so that he did not have to walk like the hunchback of Notre Dame to avoid hitting his head around the perimeter of our apartment. And lastly, doing a gallery wall could make a large visual impact for relatively less monetary investment, so all in all it seemed like the right decision for both us and the space.

Gallery Wall Hanging Options (& Renter Friendly Considerations)

Over recent years, Charlie and I have become the “go-to” people in our family for hanging gallery walls, although I still would not say that we are experts. Each has come with trial and error, but slowly we have learned more and more about options, spacing and project speediness (or lack there of!). Over the years, we have not only hung multiple in our own home, but we have been enlisted to help with gallery displays in the living rooms, bonus rooms and stairwells of our grandparents, parents and siblings homes as well. Seeing this, we have traditionally used picture hanging hardware or small nails and screws to carefully and mathematically lay out each design. While this was our default, being in an apartment, we really didn’t want to put dozens of holes into the walls. A handful, that’s fine – dozens, maybe not.

To know our course of action more thoroughly, we dove into the options for hanging a gallery wall, which are:

Traditional method – use picture hanging hardware or small nails / screws
Picture rail method – if in an older home (or if installed in a new home), use a picture rail below the molding to hang art with small hooks and picture wire
Command method – use Command strips to fix art to the wall
Floating shelf ledge method – use floating shelves mounted to the wall to display art on
Simulated picture rail method – mimic a traditional picture rail but with a metal rail instead of a molding ledge

Since we had already ruled out the traditional method and didn’t have an existing picture rail to work with, I was left with three options: Command strips, floating shelves, or a simulated picture rail. While most people likely would default to Command strips (and I love them for many other things in my home), the thought of using them for this gallery wall gave me flashbacks to my college days of art falling off the walls in the middle of the night because of the Command strips giving way. Not wanting to also damage the floors or the art, I ruled out this option. I also ruled out the floating ledge option because that would require as many screws as the traditional method while not giving as “clean” of an aesthetic. The analysis left me with one option I was excited to attempt and that was to simulate a picture rail.

Creating A Picture Rail

While creating a picture rail does use a few screws, on the whole, it requires far fewer than hanging each piece individually. Similarly, once everything is hung with picture wire, the entire gallery can be disassembled and reassembled with relative ease in the future as the wire mounted to the frames will stay the same and only the rod will have to be reassembled. Seeing this, I was excited to proceed. Designers have been using picture rails (particularly in classical or historical designs) for years, however after researching a couple of brass rod options, I was almost scared away. Full brass picture rails are so expensive! With this in mind, I went searching for other options and after a little trial and error followed these next steps.

Materials:

Ikea Hultarp Rails
Coated Picture Wire With Crimps and Hanging Hardware
Art
Snips
Screws
Pliers
Level
Screwdriver

Steps

Step 1: Collect your frames and art. Whether buying new or using what you have, collect your art into a single group to see what you have to work with. Since we did not move over many of our items from home, I mostly was starting from scratch (except for a few flower prints from the fabulous print calendar by Michelle Boyd Studio that my brother gifted me) and therefore set out to find local pieces from thrift / antique stores, street artists and other unique spots from our travels. Once you at least have all of the frames with the structure that you want to include (notice a few of my frames are blank to incorporate other pieces at a later time!), begin laying out your design on the floor to see how it all will come together. After you find a layout you like, take a picture to reference later on.

Step 2: After collecting the art (or laying out the art / pictures you already have), determine the length of the rail you need based on your wall and desired gallery width. Next, find the corresponding Hultarp rails from Ikea to accommodate your desired width. I bought 3 – 31.5” rods for a total of about 95” to spread my art between, however the rods also come in ~23” and ~15” lengths.

Step 3: Once your gallery is laid out and your rod is ready, install the rod at your desired height off the floor. You want to be sure that you hang it high enough to give space for the art to hang down, but not so high that it feels like it is floating in space. To mount, we screwed in each section at a time, connecting the rods in between with a stabilizing bracket. Within the package of the Hultarp rods, a double sided screw is included to be able to connect the rods. Likewise, the interior of each end of the rods are threaded, so the screws can attach easily. Screw in one side of the double sided screw, then add the stabilizing bracket, then attach the next pole to the remaining end of the double sided screw etc. At each portion, be sure that the rod is totally level to avoid your pictures hanging incorrectly.

How To Make A Renter Friendly Gallery Wall With This Ikea Hack

Step 4: After your picture rail is mounted to the wall, begin hanging your first row of pictures according to the spacing you included when you previously laid out your design (this is where your reference photo becomes helpful).

To hang, simply cut a piece of the coated picture wire with your snips to your desired length. To calculate the desired length, add the amount of spacing you want, how far the hardware is down the back of the frame and an additional 4” to account for the two connection loops. EX. 4” (spacing from bar) + 1.5” (measurement from the top of frame to frame hardware) + 4” (allowing 2” per connection) = ~9.5” length of wire for that picture. Slide the picture wire through the crimp and bracket of the frame before looping through the crimp again. Use your pliers to clamp the crimp and hold the picture wire in place. Complete this process to attach the wire to the frame and then repeat around the picture rail. When attaching to the picture rail, adjust the wire through the crimp as necessary to ensure that your spacing is where you like and your picture is level before clamping the crimp.

When attaching wire to larger art pieces, use (or add) frame mounts on either side of the frame to help it hang correctly on two wires instead of one (to prevent the weight from making it twist). For smaller pieces, normally a single connection in the center works well as the weight of the frame shouldn’t make it turn and it can be steadied on the wires surrounding it in the gallery. If you are adding frame hardware to each side of a larger piece, be sure that you add the frame bracket / hardware anywhere between 1” and 3” from the top of the frame to ensure it hangs appropriately.

Step 5: Continue hanging your pieces with the method above; spacing, measuring, leveling and clamping in place until all pieces are complete! You can adjust the horizontal spacing between the art after all of your pieces are installed by slowly moving the wire over the bar, but the vertical spacing will be set by the crimps. Then, stand back to admire your work!

Final Thoughts

For a little investment of time and money, you soon can have an amazing gallery wall that is both portable and renter friendly! While this method does not avoid the use of all screws, it does only use a few to create a large impact. Likewise, once you do have to move, simply slide the wire off of the Haltarp pole and then reassemble in your new spot! We have been thrilled with the way that our gallery wall has turned out and it has already made our space feel instantly more like “ours”. So, what do you think? Would you try this Ikea hack for a gallery wall? I would love to know in the comment section below and be sure to save for later or share with a friend!

Happy creating!