Designer Tessa Wolf on framing and gallery walls

Tessa Wolf is the creative director of Framebridge, a Washington, D.C.-based online custom framing service founded in 2014. Before that, she managed home service and sales operations programs at LivingSocial and worked in design and marketing for other companies. Wolf joined staff writer Jura Koncius for The Washington Post's Home Front online chat. Here is an edited excerpt.

Q: What's the best way to choose the focal point of your gallery wall? Should it be the biggest piece? The one you love the most? The most colorful? 

A: I think the starting piece or pieces for a gallery wall should be the ones you love the most. Hopefully, those aren't also your biggest ones, because those are the hardest to plan around. Let your focal piece be your guide for the rest of the design. Figure out what you love about it — the story it reminds you of, the colors, the medium, the frame — it can be anything! Once you know, find other things that make you feel the same way. If you love them, you'll love them together in a gallery wall. P.S.: The worst thing you can do is put your biggest piece in the center of a wall and just build out from the middle with your smaller pieces. It will look like a sun.

Q: I have a pretty small space but love the look of a dramatic gallery wall. Any recommendations for achieving the drama in a smaller space?

A: Small spaces are my favorite places to hang gallery walls, actually! Since you don't have as many walls to fill, you can go all in on an amazing floor-to-ceiling installation. Pick your favorite focal wall and build up. It will really accentuate the height of the room and make the whole space feel bigger.

Q: What's the best way to design an eclectic gallery wall with the intention of growing it over time?

A: The best way is to be sure you start with an "open" arrangement rather than a closed one with perfectly square edges. I plan to add to one at my house. The outline of the arrangement is imperfect now (it's not a grid or anything), which means I can add pieces to the top right, bottom right, top left, etc. The most important thing is to be sure you keep the same amount of space between your frames as you add them, which makes it feel less chaotic. I always recommend two inches. 

Q: I would like to incorporate some decorative items such as a large clock and a basket to my feature wall. Do you have any suggestions for where items should go, or do you think it is best to just stick to pictures? When does it start to look too crazy? 

A: I love adding unframed things like these to gallery walls. Just treat them like you would one of the frames in your arrangement — keep the same amount of space between each piece and try not to group all the unframed things together; they'll look better if they're sprinkled throughout the design. I think it looks cleaner to have a gallery wall with all photos, but much, much more interesting to have one that's a mix of art, photos, and mementos. It starts to look a little crazy if there are no commonalities between the pieces, so I try to keep something consistent in framing for a wall like this — white mats, moldings within a certain color scheme, etc.

Q: I live in an older apartment with original hardwood floors — they're a dark, almost chocolate walnut color. I love wood frames but am worried my favorites like cherry, will clash. Any advice for mixing and pairing frames with existing woods in your space? 

A: If you have really dark floors, my advice would be to try not to match your frames to them. As a rule, I think things should either match perfectly (so dark walnut floors + exactly the same shade of dark walnut frames) or not match at all. With your floors, I would vote for a mix of light wood (like ash — my favorite), white, black, and a few carefully chosen metallic frames. It will look as if you collected them over time rather than trying to find something perfect for this apartment.

Q: My husband and I have quite a large number of diplomas as well as other professional certificates that are still rolled up in tubes after too many years to mention. I would love to create a gallery wall for our home office. Do you have any ideas as to what types of frames, mats and colors to use? Should they all be uniform?

A: This is a great idea. I would recommend framing them all a little bit differently since it will feel more unique, but keeping a consistent theme throughout. For diplomas and certificates, I love black and gold with cream mats or no mats. Use black frames with different widths, add accent mats in school colors to a few special ones and maybe even consider mixing in some framed photos of the two of you. It's going to look amazing.

Q: After losing my parents, I inherited some old photos that I would like to frame and put up, most likely in a wide hallway. Where do I start? Are there any ground rules to keep in mind while sorting through the lot of photos? 

A: This is a beautiful idea, and I think a hallway is the perfect place for these. Go through the photos and pick out your favorite eight or ten. It doesn't even matter why you love them — just go for the ones that make you feel something. Lay them all out on the floor and look at them together. Arrange them into a wide layout, and picture how big each would be with a frame. Choose a limited frame color palette (something like golds, blacks, and warm woods is great for vintage photos) and frame them.

When you hang them, keep the vertical center about 57 inches from the ground (eye level). Hang them the length of the hallway, but without being too perfect. This will allow you to add new ones above and below over the years. 

Q: I'd love to do a gallery wall in my bedroom but I'm worried about it making the space look cluttered and small. I live in a small bedroom with only one window and I want to make it look larger rather than smaller — how high should I be taking the pictures and should I only use big pictures/frames, only small ones, etc.?

A: If you're worried about making your room feel smaller (which I totally get), I would consider a gallery wall with a clean grid arrangement rather than one that's more organic. I'm a true believer that you should go as high as you can with frames in a small room. Making your ceilings feel higher is guaranteed to make the space feel taller and bigger. 

Q: We got married later in life, and came into the marriage with our own artwork. Should we just put up what we want where we want it, or strive for some sort of uniformity (for example, the same frames for all the pictures in the living/dining room). Where's the line between personal (which is what the pictures bring) and chaos?

A: What a great problem to have. I would recommend taking all the pieces you guys have and laying them out on the floor together. Group the ones that feel right (look for similar colors, vibe, etc.). Start to shape them into an arrangement and think about what you're missing, design and story-wise. Fill in the gaps with framed photos of the two of you and a few souvenirs from your wedding or travels.

The wall you curate together will end up as a story of both of you as individuals and of your new life together. I believe that a gallery wall with a little bit of chaos is great when it's personal. Lean into it and don't worry about the frames matching. Then, be sure you take your favorite pieces you didn't use in the wall and hang them as individuals in little vignettes around the rest of your house — above desks, dressers, at the end of hallways, etc. 

Q: I would like to preserve a child's dress my grandmother made for me from the train of my mother's 1953 satin wedding gown in a frame. I wore it a few times. What are some options to frame family heirlooms and how much do they cost? 

A: What a beautiful idea. Custom-framing heirlooms like clothing and textiles is a great way to preserve and celebrate them. It's always more costly to frame fabric than to frame paper because of the processes used to attach the fabric to the mat board behind. We loosely sew or tack fabric to a mat so it looks sort of like it's floating (which is beautiful). Framebridge's price for something like this would depend on the size of the piece, but a child's dress would be about $199 with free shipping to you. 

Q: I have a watercolor print of a windmill that fell off the wall and is now askew in its matting. This is a vintage piece and the back of the frame is papered over. It seems like the only way to readjust the picture is to tear off the paper — will this damage the frame?

A: Bummer! Yes, you will need to remove the kraft paper from the back to fix it. Tear it off carefully, loosen or remove the hardware on the back, bend back the framing points or staples that are holding the pieces in the frame, then carefully take out everything but the glass. You can adjust the piece and retape it to the back of the mat or the foam core piece below it. Then carefully lay everything back in and push the staples back down and reattach the hardware. Ideally you'd add a new piece of kraft paper on the back, but you'll be OK if you don't until you can have it reframed. 

Q: We collect the National Museum of American History's Jazz Appreciation Month posters. The posters for the last three years form a triptych. Do you have any suggestions for framing and hanging them besides the obvious one of hanging them in black frames in an aligned row on our off-white wall? This would work fine, but we thought we'd consult the expert before we get them framed in case you have a more inspired approach.

A: First of all, these posters are so cool and I'm jealous. If they're all the same size, I'd probably try to keep them the same size when you frame them. Just because you don't necessarily want to hang them as a perfect triptych now doesn't mean you won't want to in the future. You might even get a fourth next year and want to split them into two pairs or something. With this in mind, I'd probably try to mat all three posters the same way. Maybe even consider float-mounting them to add some character?

This said, I definitely think you can have some fun with the moldings you choose. You could consider different metallics that are all the same width or two white and one silver or something? We even have a red molding that would be amazing with some of the designs. Choose the frame you love best with each piece and just be sure the outer dimensions match.

Q: Is mixing metallics an early 2000s faux pas or timeless design tool?

A: It's such a slippery slope. I'm all for mixing metallic frames, with a few exceptions. You have to be super careful when mixing yellow golds. Some are so brassy and others are really cool-toned, but you don't realize the difference until they're hanging next to each other and making you cringe. Try to keep warm and cool golds apart — they do not mix. I also hate rose gold and yellow gold together. I think they always clash. Rose gold looks amazing with metallic silvers and champagnes, but try to keep it away from brass. 

Q: I have some killer vintage frames that I rescued from flea markets over the years. I want to mix them with a few modern styles for an eclectic look, but I'm not sure which finishes to go with. Any advice?

A: I love vintage frames. They're all over my house mixed with Framebridge ones. The easiest answer is to frame everything else in white gallery frames, which you can hang with any other frames you have. If you're feeling a little more adventurous, you can add in a few styles that are vintage inspired as long as the tones match the ones you have. We developed our Archive Collection frames just for this.

Q: If you could only frame one thing, what would it be and why?

A: When we were little, our upstairs bathroom had wallpaper with little bird footprints all over it. My sister Alisha and I used to think the footprints spelled out secret messages (normal). I kick myself now that I didn't get a tear of that wallpaper to frame for each of us when my parents redid the bathroom.