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Toronto framer Tara Gavin recommends giving a gallery wall a design direction through deliberate choices in frame finishes, mat colors, spacing and image placement. In a project for a narrow 31-inch wall, she combined oak and black frames with burgundy accents and black-and-white family photos.
Toronto framing expert Tara Gavin says a successful gallery wall starts with a clear design direction, not simply a collection of frames hung together. In advice published by House Beautiful, the founder of On the Wall Framing explains how color, matting, image placement and photo treatment can make a display feel connected—even on a narrow wall.
Gavin’s examples include a project curated for a Toronto family of five in collaboration with design studio Kessler Levitan. The available wall measured just 31 inches wide. Rather than defaulting to all-white mats and wood frames, Gavin combined oak and black frames with burgundy-colored mats and frames. She said the mix added warmth and contrast while keeping the display from feeling too formal.
Her other recommendations focus on the treatment of the images and the space around them. Gavin describes the mat—the border between an image and its frame—as a way to give photographs more visual presence. She also suggests using more than one image in a frame, or placing images slightly off-center, instead of relying on a single centered photograph in every frame.
For family photographs taken at different times and in different lighting, Gavin says printing in black and white can help unify the collection. In the project featured by House Beautiful, the photographs were monochrome while the mats and frames supplied the color. The approach is a design option, not a requirement: Gavin’s advice is to make the choices work together rather than follow one fixed formula.
Design Choices That Pull a Wall Together
Gavin’s guidance offers a practical way to approach a gallery wall as a planned composition, rather than a collection assembled frame by frame without an overall idea. That can help homeowners make decisions before hanging work, including whether color should come from the images, the frames, the mats or a mix of those elements.
The example also shows how a limited stretch of wall can be treated deliberately. Its 31-inch width posed a constraint for the Toronto project, but the source does not give measurements for individual frames or spacing. The advice is most useful as a set of choices to adapt: a coordinated palette, varied matting and considered placement can create visual interest without requiring a large wall or an expensive art collection.
Using personal photographs also changes the purpose of the display. Gavin argues that memories kept on phones or in boxes can become meaningful home art. Black-and-white printing may make pictures from different moments look more consistent, while colored mats and frames can keep the arrangement from appearing uniform or impersonal.
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The Toronto Wall Behind the Advice
The recommendations come from a House Beautiful report about Gavin’s framing work, rather than from a formal study or a set of universal hanging standards. The featured commission was for a Toronto family of five and was curated with Kessler Levitan. The narrow wall gave the project a specific design problem: how to create a composed display within limited width.
Gavin told the publication that her team experiments with scale, unexpected mat colors, different frame finishes and the positioning of photographs inside frames. In the featured arrangement, the images were printed in black and white, while the oak, black and burgundy elements provided variation. House Beautiful presents this as one example of her approach, not as a template every gallery wall should copy.
“The secret to doing a gallery wall right is to make sure it has a “design direction.””
— Tara Gavin, founder of On the Wall Framing, quoted by House Beautiful
Details the Report Does Not Give
House Beautiful’s report does not specify the exact number of frames, their dimensions, the spacing between them or how the arrangement was mounted. It also does not provide a step-by-step hanging plan or establish that black-and-white printing, burgundy accents or off-center placement will suit every room.
The source describes Gavin’s professional recommendations and one commissioned example; it does not compare the result with other layouts or report testing on viewers. Readers should treat the choices as design guidance rather than rules backed by measured outcomes. The publication date is also not included in the supplied source material.
How to Apply the Approach at Home
The report does not announce a follow-up project or a scheduled next development. For readers planning a display, the approach points to a practical sequence: settle on an overall direction, choose a limited mix of frame finishes and mat colors, then decide how the photographs will be treated and positioned. Testing the arrangement before hanging it can help reveal whether the mix feels balanced in the available space.
Gavin’s advice leaves room for personal preference. A homeowner could use color in the mats, keep frames consistent, print selected photos in black and white, or include multiple images in one frame. The key is to make those decisions as part of the same composition, while recognizing that the source does not prescribe exact measurements or a single correct layout.
Key Questions
What does Tara Gavin say is the key to a successful gallery wall?
Gavin says it needs a clear design direction. She recommends thinking about frame finishes, mat colors, scale and image placement as related choices.
Does every gallery wall need burgundy frames or mats?
No. Burgundy was used in one Toronto project. Gavin’s broader suggestion is to consider colors that add interest and work with the room; the source also mentions soft blue, olive green and warm neutrals as possibilities.
Why print family photos in black and white?
Gavin says black-and-white printing can make photographs taken in different lighting and with different color palettes feel more consistent when displayed together. She presents it as an option, not a requirement.
Can a gallery wall work in a narrow space?
The example in House Beautiful was designed for a wall only 31 inches wide. The report does not provide exact frame measurements or spacing, but Gavin’s project shows how a narrow area can be approached as a planned display.
Does Gavin recommend centering every photo in its frame?
No. She says her team sometimes uses multiple openings in one frame or places photographs slightly off-center to make the composition less predictable.
Source: rss
