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Before and After: This Entryway’s Colorful Transformation Has 3 Great Gallery Wall Tricks

published Sep 22, 2023
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Someone measuring wall before installing art wall.

For this completely blank and builder-grade entryway, homeowners Lezeth Alfaro and her partner, Brian Hebert, hung a gallery of artwork (and more!). Because Lezeth opted for large-scale painted shapes in the rest of her home, she wanted to go with frames to add color in this space. There are definitely some fun gallery wall ideas to steal in this space — three, in fact.

“A lot of the art I used came from different trips me and my partner have taken or museums we have visited,” she says. “I didn’t want it to be so serious, so I mixed up the color of the frames, the sizes, and the orientations and incorporated different “textures,” like the frameless skeleton, mirror, and the squiggle light!” 

First, as mentioned above, not all of the artwork in a gallery wall has to be 2D or framed (see: the skeleton on the right of the mirror, which Lezeth found on a trip to Mexico City). 

“I’m Mexican, and my dad is from Mexico City, so that really inspired a lot of the entryway,” she says. “I found it in a really cool and hip interior design store called Originario.” 

She and Brian gave the skeleton a hot pink backdrop to help it stand out. That’s idea number two: If you have an item that needs a “frame” or just needs to feel a bit larger to fill the space, just put a bit of paint behind it! Lezeth and Brian used Behr’s Ballerina Tutu

“I was very intentional with the shade of pink I used!” Lezeth says. “It’s the closest color I found to ‘Mexico City Pink.’ That shade can be found all over CDMX; it’s in a lot of the art and architecture around, AND it’s the signature color of the taxis!”

Finally, it’s extra special if the pieces in the gallery wall “speak” to one another or have a theme. Lezeth already mentioned that Mexico City, or CDMX, inspired much of the gallery wall (note the Frida Kahlo on the opposite wall, the Rifle Paper Co. Mexico City print, and the 2D skeleton to go with its 3D bony friend, which was made by Lezeth’s friend Brady).

The moral of the story is that personal and one-of-a-kind pieces intermixed with exhibition posters you can find on Etsy and prints sold to the mass market make for a personal and one-of-a-kind art display. Got any skeletons in your closet (or find any on your travels)? Add them to a gallery wall!

You can see more of this couple’s colorful home in this bedroom redo, this dining room redo, and this living room redo.

This article originally published on Apartment Therapy. See it there: Before and After: An Entryway’s Colorful Spruce-Up Has 3 Great Gallery Wall Tricks