Beach Theme Gallery Wall with Free Printable Beach Photography

Today I’m sharing an easy DIY beach theme gallery wall with free printable beach photography as part of my son’s surf style bedroom makeover for the One Room Challenge.

Whew! What a whirlwind of a week. I think I need a trip to the beach to unwind a little…

But seriously, who doesn’t love a sunny beach Va-cay?! It’s my youngest, Finn’s, very FAVOURITE thing in the world, which is why we are going with that “theme” for his bedroom makeover project. If you’ve been following along the past few weeks, you may have seen some of my previous posts talking about this room makeover as part of the spring One Room Challenge.

So far I’ve shared the “before” of his space along with plans, some surf style bedroom inspiration, a check-in on my limited first week’s progress, the huge wave wall mural that is featured behind his bed, as well his small reach-in closet makeover using an IKEA PAX organizer.

Things are heatin’ up as we head into the final week (eek! will it be ready!?), and I managed to squeak out this beach theme gallery wall project this past week. I’ve got to really push it to get the rest done before the big reveal next Wednesday, since we are away this weekend for  a soccer tournament. Thank goodness for my Fri-YAY work at home days!

I’m pretty over-the-moon about how this gallery wall turned out – I’m just sharing a sneak peak picture of it because I want to share more details once in his bedroom reveal (and, because, I put this up in the evening the other day and the light was failing me big time when it came time to take photographs). But, I figured I’d share the meat and potatoes of it with you all ASAP, along with access to some free printable beach photography if you are looking to do your own beachy gallery wall and want a couple of pretty filler images!

I started by combing through my pictures from our recent trip to Hawaii. I selected some with Finn in them, as well as some that are more general surf/beach images. {I’m sharing the ones without children in them as free printable images – see the details at the bottom of this post.}

I selected several images and had them printed in larger sizes at Costco, and then I used a variety of white and driftwood coloured frames (some I had on hand, some I picked up at Walmart).

In addition to pictures, I added two wooden letter designs (DIYs coming soon!), as well as a license plate plaque that we picked up on holidays and that wooden arrow that you may have noticed above his bed in the original “before” pictures.

I measured the area of the wall in his bedroom that I wanted to cover and then used two tape measures to give me an idea of that size on the floor.

I laid out the framed pictures along with the plaque, arrow, and wooden letters in an arrangement I liked. This part takes some playing with to get it working together cohesively. I found it easiest to stagger the edges of the arrangement so that if there were any changes while hanging the pictures they aren’t super noticeable.

I took a picture of the arrangement and printed it out on my printer, then measured between each item to give me an idea of how to measure things to place them in the same wall on the wall…

The execution of hanging the pictures did not work out exactly as planned (as it never seems to when I do a gallery wall). One of my frames fell and broke mid-project so I had to go back to the drawing board and move things around a little bit to get it to all work together.

Here’s how the final product turned out….

A few changes from the original, but overall I’m still super pleased with it and it looks so great in real life. I wish I could transport you to my house to check it out in person, as I don’t think these taken-in-the-evening-light pictures are doing it any sort of justice. Hopefully I can get some really great pics for you when I do his room reveal pictures VERY SOON! Eek!!

I also can’t wait to share those wooden letter DIYs with you – or at least one of them. Both are featured projects in my upcoming craft book!

You can order your own copy here…

AND!!!!

If you’re looking to create a beach or surf themed gallery wall in your house, then I’m sharing some of my original photography for free (minus the pictures of my kids, of course:) I’ve added the ocean images that you see, below,  into my free printable library JUST FOR my email subscribers!  Simply print them out in whatever size you like at your local photography print shop (I printed mine off at Costco).

I will warn you that the lighthouse picture that I used has a hazy quality to it; not crisp and clear like the ocean picture below it. I like that effect, it was taken in soft evening light, but if you want hard and crisp then that’s not the image for you. I hope you enjoy these!

You can download the printables yourself by clicking HERE or the button below to subscribe.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS YOUR FREE PRINTABLES

 

 

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