Here’s the Easiest Way to “Layer” Your Gallery Wall

Gallery walls are great and all — until you run out of room. What can you do when you have too many framed pieces of art and not enough wall space? As this TikToker shows, you can start to layer. And the finished result is #cluttercore to the max.

Marina from the Max and Marina TikTok page (@visitvilleges) showed how she gets that overlapping look to her gallery wall that also allows her to cram in more art, despite not having the space.

“I just look for frames that have longer wired backs … there’s a lot of give to it,” she said in a March video. “So that means there’s just more room to be able to layer it. I put the nail in the spot where I knew it would be overlapping.”

And if the secondhand frame doesn’t already have a longer wire, Marina creates her own using scrap wire or picture hanging wire to lengthen the hanging loop so it can easily reach the nail.

“You can LAYER FRAMES?” one TikToker commenter wrote. “YES YES YES!” Marina responded.

Another option is to use longer nails than standard picture-hanging nails. Look for long hardware nails at the hardware store or order a set online that includes this longer size for picture hanging. 

You can then use the frame’s existing wire as long as the nail is flush with or sticks out further than the frames surrounding it.

Once you get the hang of it, you can layer away! If you want to keep the majority of your art on full display, then use your smaller framed pieces to layer. But if you’re going for a piled-on effect, then feel free to layer larger pieces over smaller ones.

There’s no wrong way to layer your gallery wall. With the right hardware, you can bring your cluttercore dreams to life.