Collage Walls are one of my favorite things! I think one of the reasons I love them so much is that they are a collection of various items that somehow come together and are connected. It says, “Yes, we are all unique and different, but we can find common ground to unite us in one way or another.” In my first house I had a GIANT collage wall. It was gorgeous and was the focal point of my living room. All of the items were different. I had race bibs and metals from my half-marathon and full marathon, pictures I’d taken, pictures from other photographers, drawings, postcards, a plate, some keys, and all sorts of objects. The one thing that all of the items had in common was North Carolina. Check it out, below.

Unfortunately, my new house is not an open concept floor plan that can accommodate a massive display like the one above. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t have a place to recreate my ode to the Old North State, but as I was in the middle of putting up my wooden chevrons on one side of my TV I found that I needed something else to balance out the other side. (The post on how I made the chevrons can be found here.) I don’t have any other piece of art that is large enough by itself to cover the same amount of wall space as the chevrons.

In order to cover the same area as the chevrons, I immediately thought of all the picture frames from my collage wall and decide to put together a new configuration, for the other side of the TV.

Let me back up and say that collage walls stress me out. Hanging anything on the wall stresses me out because I’m always afraid I’m going to measure incorrectly and put the hole in the wrong place. Collage walls can be even more challenging because there’s more than one thing going on the wall, everything needs to be spaced appropriately, and nothing is in a straight line because everything is put together like a puzzle. But with a little patience and extra measuring anyone can put a collage wall together and hang it up on the wall.

To start the collage wall I measured the space that I wanted to fill on the wall. For this one, I wanted it to mirror the space of the chevrons. The chevrons were situated between the top of the doorframe and the top of the TV cabinet; the space was approximately 33” wide and 49” tall.

From there I started to lay out various frames to see what would fit in the space.

I like collages that are even on all sides and are orderly. It would probably be easier to do an organic collage where everything stops and ends in its own place, but that’s not my style. When I was making my giant collage at the old house, it was a lot easier since there was a lot of wall space to work with. This small one was challenging. It was hard to find different sized objects to create the collage with, so that everything wasn’t in a straight line but was more like a puzzle of pieces intertwined.

Once everything is in place on the floor and spaced out appropriately, I started putting things up on the wall. I find it easier to start from the top because you can measure from the ceiling as a reference point.

It gets a little tricky hanging the second row of items and so on while trying to maintain the spacing so that everything is even at the end. It’s helpful to take a picture of the completed collage when it’s on the floor before you start putting up the first picture. I also like to sketch the collage on a piece of paper, and then measure and jot down the space between each item.

In the end, take your time! It’s a marathon, not a sprint for this type of thing. As you can see from my before picture, above, I was watching The Crown on Netflix while I was trying to put this thing together. I did turn it off to concentrate on measuring correctly when I was putting holes in the wall. But I incorrectly measured the placement of the anchor for the large pier picture. I was able to fix it by moving the wire on that particular photo (it’s an Ikea frame that allows you to adjust the location of the hanging wire.) Even if that didn’t work, I could always drill another hole and the mistake would have been covered by the picture. Good Luck with putting together your collage wall!