Four Must-Have Items on Your Coastal Gallery Wall

Gallery walls are a great way to showcase your favorite photos. By creating a coastal gallery wall, you are able to highlight favorite family memories of your time by the water. When creating a coastal gallery wall, there are three vital items (other than photos) that you need in order to make the most of your seaside wall space.

Coastal Gallery Wall Item #1 – Art

Having art on your walls is nothing new. It showcases your particular style. In the case of a coastal gallery wall, adding a few fun or relaxing beach paintings or prints will add dimension to your space. Since my gallery wall is in the family room, I wanted to create a vibrant and fun vibe. My favorite artist for funky colorful coastal prints is Leoma Lovegrove. She is a Florida artist with a flair for the vibrant and playful.

Coastal Gallery Wall Item #2 – Texture

One of the most common elements in coastal design style is creating texture with fabrics, beach elements (e.g. shells, seaweed, sea glass), and boating accessories (e.g. netting, buoys, anchors, marine light fixtures). Adding texture to your coastal gallery wall will  help bring that peaceful “beach-y” feeling to your space. For my gallery wall, I used burlap netting and two fake starfish.

Coastal Gallery Wall Item #3 – Quotes

The reason you decided to create a gallery wall showcasing your favorite beach moments is to bring either a sense of joy or peace to your home decor. Your gallery wall is a visual demonstration of  your love for the people and places in the photos. While pictures are worth a 1,000 words it does not hurt to add a few chosen words or quotes that inspire you.

I created two framed quotes, using my Silhouette Portrait that I have tucked away for those brief moments when I have a chance to get crafty. I also added my “This House Lives on Island Time” Oar that I made a few years ago while on maternity leave.

Coastal Gallery Wall Item #4 – Personality

Since I’m a new Jimmy Buffett Parrot Head, I wanted to add a few items that expressed that laid back attitude on my beach wall. I included a Margaritaville clock. As you can see it’s set to 5:00pm. We took the batteries out of the clock so that it’s Always 5:00 Somewhere. 

I picked up the sign at a Margaritaville Restaurant (sadly, it was the one that closed recently in Glendale, AZ). I’m still holding out hope they will open another one in Arizona.

Layout of Coastal Gallery Wall

Once you have your particular collection of the four must-have items (art, texture, quotes, personality), the next step is to lay the pieces out on the floor to design your art collage. I was doing this late at night and, as you can clearly see, it was past my puppy’s bedtime.

Take an inventory of the items you have, their sizes and shapes. Let’s look at that list again:

1. Art

Start with your largest items (usually your artwork). These are your focal points. Try to balance these bigger pieces by placing one on the left side and one on the right (or one on the top/bottom).

After you have placed your art on the ground, add your photo frames. Move them around until you feel comfortable with the arrangement. Don’t worry, you will probably be moving many of them later on in the process before you are finally satisfied.

2. Texture

Now that you have your art and your photos arranged, look at your textural pieces. These items are usually not shaped as a square or rectangle so they add great contrast to your coastal gallery wall. Do you have an old rusted wall anchor or a wooden silhouette of a whale? Place these items throughout your layout. The idea here is the break up the look of squares and rectangles. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the burlap ribbon but decided to place it behind a photo collage frame that did not inherently have a coastal feel.

3. Quotes

Do you have one quote or two? If you have one quote, you may wish to place it in the middle of your coastal gallery wall and place the photos around it. If you have more than one quote, you can do what I did and put them in a place that makes sense to you and does not compete with other items in the gallery.

4. Personality

Don’t be afraid to make a mistake here. This is the fun part! Place items with special meaning to your family throughout the design.

Play around with the arrangement of photos, art, quotes, and texture in your installation. While it’s on the floor, it is easy to just move the items back until everything looks balanced to your eye. Soon, you will have a beautiful coastal gallery wall to liven any space in your home!