There’s always that one wall in your new home that begs the question: “What am I going to do here?” It can seem like a daunting task. The hesitancy and fear of the permanence of drilling holes into your sheetrock is valid. With this blank slate staring back at you, where do you even begin?

If you find your commitment issues presenting themselves in this way, you are not alone. However, instead of falling into that trap, principal residential designer of Kristina’s Collective Interiors, Kristina Petit, is giving her tips and tricks to ease the stress surrounding gallery walls.

Finding pieces that are genuine to your home, for example, is a crucial way to begin to relate to your space. As the mastermind, you have the creative freedom to tell a story without any words.

“I really feel like the most exciting and best spaces generally are the most authentic to the people who live in them,” says Petit.

Once you have an abstract idea of the direction you are hoping to go in, thinking of the color scheme is the next step.

“It is really hard to do anything well without having a color story in mind, unless that’s just what you’re naturally good at,” she says. “So for most people, I do think it is important to start with a color story.”

A color story consists of the three to five different colors you’d like to build your design around. But if color theory is not your specialty, Petit says a safe option will always be black and white.

For an updated approach to a gallery wall, and one that requires fewer holes in the wall, Petit sometimes uses art rails to suspend her frames.

“What’s so great about the art rails is that they make the art so easily interchangeable,” she says. “So if somebody really loves art or they get bored easily like me, it’s so easy to change it out because it’s just attached with little S hooks on a chain.”

If your designer’s block comes from choosing the art rather than the arrangement, Petit has tips for that also. “They sell curated collections for gallery walls on places like Etsy. So you can just pick the one you like and they’ll have already pulled all the art that looks good together for you,” she says.

For more design tips from Kristina Petit, follow her socials @kristinascollective or check out her website. And don’t forget to tag us in your updated gallery walls on Instagram!