How To: IKEA Ribba Frame Gallery Wall

At long last, I have finally gotten around to completing something I’ve wanted to do since we first moved in to our house, which is to create a gallery wall of favorite art and photos that can be easily rotated and switched out whenever my decorating ADD kicks in.

I started by collecting photos of inspiring gallery walls to see which style I wanted for my space…

{via 1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

Through this process, I discovered that I strongly prefer a random asymmetrical arrangement as opposed to a grid of frames.  I also found that while I do love the look of mismatched frames, I wanted a bit of continuity with the style and color of the frames and mats.  My final decision was to go with IKEA Ribba frames for their affordability and variety of sizes.  I chose black frames over white because the gallery wall is in our dining area, near a sea of black granite in the kitchen and across from a humongous black box of a TV in the great room, and I thought that it would balance it out.

IKEA is fairly far away from my house, so I wanted to be absolutely sure of a shopping list before I went to get the frames.  Naturally, I did what any obsessive compulsive over-planner would do – I created an excel spreadsheet.  {Don’t judge me.}  I made each cell into a square shape by changing the column width; each cell represented one square inch.  Then, I found the specifications for each frame on IKEA’s website and drew them out with black, white, and tan shapes.  I made sure to “group” each frame’s shapes together so that they would all move together automatically as I copied and rearranged them.  Then I fiddled around with some different layouts.

The gray box behind them is the existing piece of artwork that I already had in the space, so I could visualize how much bigger it would be on the wall.  The one below was the winner, with the exception of a 5″ x 7″ frame put in place of the furthest right 4″ x 6″ frame pictured…

My final shopping list was:

• 1 – 12″ x 12″ shadowbox
• 3 – 5″ x 5″ shadowboxes
• 3 – 8″ x 10″ frames
• 3 – 5″ x 7″ frames
• 5 – 4″ x 6″ frames {one more than I planned to use, just in case…}

All of the frames totaled about $110.

Once I get them home, I laid them out on the floor just to make sure the layout still looked good in real life and not just my Excel world…

HOORAY!  I still liked the layout, but the hard part was yet to come… I won’t lie to you – the IKEA Ribba frames are very poorly designed.  There’s a reason why they are so cheap.  There are no D-rings on the back, only clips that slide up and down on the vertical part of the cardboard backing.  Therefore, if there isn’t a snug fit of the clip around the cardboard, the clips can easily let the frame sink down on the wall once you hang it.  And, the smaller frames {4″x6″ and 5″x7″}, don’t even come with a set of hanging clips.  Also, some of the frames tended to lean off the wall at the top.  I was able to solve these problems fairly painlessly.  Here are my tips:

1. To place the nail on the wall, I used the screw-in-a-paint-stir-stick method.  Basically, you place a small screw halfway into the end of a paint stir stick.  Then, hang the picture wire on the screw and hold it up the wall.  When you find the perfect spot, remove the picture while holding the paint stir stick in place.  The location of the screw is the place you want to put your nail.  Give it a light tap and there will be a mark on the wall for you to hang your nail.
2. Make sure you make little marks on the back of the frame where the clips are at the time you found the nail spot.  That way, if they shift around on you, you don’t have to fiddle with them randomly to try to find out where they were before.  I may end up supergluing my clips in place eventually.
3. The smaller frames {4″x6″ and 5″x7″} only come with one clip each, which is pretty useless if you ask me.  So, I removed the clip from the 4″x6″ frames and added it to the 5″x7″ frames so I could at least have the larger frames hanging.  For the 4″x6″ frames, I cut strips of Command Velcro picture hanging strips in half lengthwise, and put one on the top and bottom of each frame.  It seems to be enough to hold the 4″x6″ frames up.
4. For the frames that were leaning away from the wall at the top, I used a halved Command Velcro strip at the top in addition to the picture wire.  It’s not enough to support the weight of the larger frames on its own, but it’s enough to hold it flush with the wall.

Hopefully those tips will save you some of the pains I went through in hanging mine!

For the artwork, I picked out some of favorite photos and turned them to black and white.  {You can do this with free programs like Picnik or Picasa.}  Just to be safe, I laid them out in the Excel file to ensure that the sizes and orientations for each photo were correct.

I placed the order online at the Costco online photo center since I was pretty certain they did 12″x12″ printing.  I was extremely pleased with the price and quality.  In total, all of the pictures were under $15.  Here it is with all of my black and white photos in place!

I wanted the three 8″x10″ frames to be filled with black and white art as opposed to photographs. My sister had drawn a Seattle illustration that I knew I wanted to use, and she offered to draw a picture of Eddie as well for the vertical one. Until she finished with those, however, I wanted to fill it all with photos so that it would look complete.

I just love it! All of the pictures are either photos I’ve taken from the different places we’ve been together or family pictures from the wedding.  It took longer than I thought, but it was so worth all the work to be able to display our favorite photographs…

Do any of you have a gallery wall? I’d love to see it!  And I hope you all have a safe and happy new year!