A gallery without your own photos: artist photographs for a new home, an office and a rental

Short answer: If you do not have photos you want to hang, build a gallery from photographs by independent photographers in the Framky Artists catalogue. For the living room, choose 5–6 frames of nature or mountains in mist. For the bedroom, 3 calm views in a light palette. For the office, 3–5 nature photos on a side wall. For the entryway, 3–4 city photos in one line. The set hangs on self-adhesive hangers, so it suits a rental home. When you later take your own photos, you can add them to the same gallery.

A gallery wall is associated with family photos. In practice, many people stand in front of an empty wall without them. They have just moved and do not yet know how the living room will look. They are furnishing an office where photos of children do not fit. They are preparing a home to rent or to sell and need neutral decoration. Or they simply have thousands of photos on a phone, and none they would want to see every day at 50 × 70 cm.

In those situations, photographs taken by professional photographers work well. In Framky Artists: photos by independent photographers we described how the catalogue works. Here we show what to choose for a specific room, how many frames to plan, and how to hang a gallery you do not have to drill for.

When your own photos are not enough

Five situations where a gallery of artist photographs is a simpler choice than searching the phone:

• A new home. The walls are empty, the furniture is only just arriving, and there are no photos of the new place yet. Artist photographs let you furnish the wall at once and add your own photos in a few months.
• A home to rent or to sell. Private family photos do not fit a home that has to appeal to strangers. A landscape or a minimalist photograph looks neutral and keeps the interior from looking empty in the listing photos.
• An office or a study. At work, family photos can be too personal. Nature and architecture calm the space without revealing anything about your private life.
• A guest room. A room for everyone does not have to tell the story of one family.
• Too few good photos. Phone photos often have too few pixels for a large format, or they do not match each other in colour. How much resolution you need for print is in how much DPI you need for photo printing.

If you are only just thinking about what to fill a wall with, start with the guide how to decorate an empty wall.

Ideas by room: living room, bedroom, office, entryway

Each room needs a different number of frames and a different mood. The table below is a starting point.

Room	Number of frames	Categories that fit	Palette
Living room	5–6	Mountains and mist, forest, sea and coast, landscape	Warm neutrals, sage green
Bedroom	3	Minimalism, sea and coast, botanicals	Sand, powder pink, light blue
Office	3–5	Nature, forest, aerial photos, architecture	Greens, graphite, black and white
Entryway	3–4	City, architecture	Black and white

Living room. A gallery above the sofa should be about two thirds of the sofa’s width and hang 15–20 cm above the back. With a 240 cm sofa, that is about 160 cm of gallery width. In a living room, one large, calm photo in the centre works best, for example mountains in mist, and 4 smaller ones in the same palette around it. More layouts above a sofa are in ideas for a gallery wall in the living room.

Bedroom. Here, less is more. Three frames of the same size in one line above the bed give the calm you need before sleep. Choose light, soft views with few details: misty water, dunes, a pastel sky.

Office. Hang the gallery on a side wall, not behind the monitor, and away from direct sun. Set the centre of the composition at 140–150 cm from the floor, and choose 30 × 40 cm as the base size. Green, water and aerial photos give the eye a moment of rest from the screen. The details are in a photo gallery in a home office.

Entryway. You see an entryway from close up and while moving, so a simple line of 3–4 frames works best. The gallery should take 50–65% of the wall’s length, and its centre should hang at 145–155 cm. Black-and-white city photos handle the artificial light that is usually the only light in an entryway. More is in a photo gallery in the entryway.

Categories and moods: nature, city, minimalism, mountains and mist

In the Framky Artists catalogue, photos are grouped into categories: nature, landscape, sea and coast, mountains and mist, forest, botanicals, wildlife, architecture, city, abstraction and texture, still life and food, minimalism, aerial photos, night sky and winter. You can also filter by colour or search for photos from a specific city.

What mood each group gives:

• Nature, forest, botanicals. The safest choice for a living room and an office. Green goes with timber, plants and light walls.
• Mountains and mist, sea and coast. A lot of space and air in the photo. Good as one large photo in the centre of the gallery.
• City and architecture. Lines, rhythm, often black and white. It fits an entryway, an office and modern interiors.
• Minimalism, abstraction and texture. Few details, a lot of empty background. Good for a bedroom and a small home, where the gallery must not overwhelm. More on that is in a gallery wall in a small flat.

A rule that works in every room: choose one or two categories and one colour from the filter. Five photos from five different categories look like a random collection, even when each one is beautiful on its own.

A rental: no drilling, easy to change

In a rented home, the gallery has to leave the wall without a trace. Every Framky set comes with self-adhesive hangers and a 1:1 paper template, so you do not need a drill. The hangers hold frames up to 50 × 70 cm and up to 900 g on smooth, painted walls.

Before you mount them, do a simple test: stick one hanger in a hidden spot, wait 24 hours, and peel it off by pulling the tab parallel to the wall. If the paint stays in place, you can hang the gallery. The full procedure and a table of wall types are in a photo gallery in a rental home, and the general rules are in the guide to hanging photo frames without drilling.

Two things worth remembering with a rental:

• You rent from someone. A gallery of artist photographs is decoration you take with you when you move. In the new home you hang it again, or you change the layout.
• You rent to someone. Neutral photos of nature or a city make the home look furnished, not empty. Listing photos are more interesting when something hangs on the wall.

Artist photographs and posters

Posters are the most common alternative. The differences that matter on the wall:

	Photographs from Framky Artists	Typical posters
Author	An independent photographer, named next to the photo	Often anonymous artwork
Print	Pigment printing with a set of 12 inks on matte photographic paper	Depends on the shop
Frames	Included, matched to the whole layout, frames without glass	Bought separately, often in a different size
Consistency	All the photos in one set and one project	Collected from several shops
Later	You can add your own photos to the same project	A separate purchase

The most important difference is in the last row. Artist photographs go into the same frames as your photos. A gallery from a new home can therefore become a mixed gallery a year later: two artist photographs stay, and photos from the first holiday in the new place appear in the other frames. A wider comparison is in a photo gallery, posters or art.

From an empty wall to a gallery in 4 steps

1. Measure the wall and choose the number of frames from the table above.
2. Open the Framky Artists catalogue, choose one or two categories and one colour. Next to each photo that fits, click “Add to my photos”.
3. Choose a layout in the photo gallery wall. Put the strongest photo in the largest frame. Stepped Vista M fits a living room well: 5 frames, 181 × 98 cm, with a 55 × 70 cm frame in the middle.
4. Place the order. The set arrives ready to hang, with a 1:1 template and self-adhesive hangers. The frames are without glass, so there are no reflections. You have 30 days to return it.