One TikToker’s Genius Hack For Creating a Gallery Wall For Free

updated Mar 29, 2023

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If you’re a fan of gallery walls, you’ll know that the cost can quickly add up. Between purchasing prints, frames, and hooks, it can become a pricey project—but TikTok has a money-saving tip that’ll allow you to create a gallery wall of dreams for next to nothing.

Maggie, who posts under the handle @wilfredhouse and shares her home renovation journey, shared a genius trick that allowed her to design an eye-catching gallery wall for (basically) free.

“I want to do a gallery wall in my office but I only have one piece of art,” she intros the video, which currently has 3.8 million views and 621,000 likes. “Because I don’t have any other art and don’t really want to spend a lot of money on other art, I go to all the websites that offer public domain files of art,”

She explains that any artwork from a museum or gallery is free to download to be public, as long as the artist passed away 70 or more years ago. The museum websites provide high-resolution downloads, that the public is then able to save or print off. Notable websites include The Met, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, and NASA.

Once she picked the art for her gallery wall, Maggie then exported the images into an Excel spreadsheet so she could visualize the finished products, lining up a few backup images in case she decided to switch a few out.

To complement her existing map print, Maggie opted for a green-toned gallery wall full of whimsical prints and nature shots.

TikTok followers were seriously impressed with the hack, taking to the comments to share their thoughts.

“I never imagined excel being used for home decor. Love it.” one person wrote.

“I’d just like to say this is genius and makes gallery walls seem less scary.” another person said.

A third commented: “Immediately saved this to my favorites to use your technique! So smart!”

Maggie finished the video by saying “some people are just really naturally good at doing gallery walls and I just don’t have the talent,” but I, for one, think she’s doing GREAT.

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