Decorative plates, especially blue and white ones, are a staple in grandmillennial home decor style.
Recommended: What is Grandmillennial Style?
But the whole styling and hanging of the plates can seem like a big task.
First you have to find plates that all look cohesive together, find a way to arrange them, then hang them on the wall.
I don’t know about you, but I am always afraid of hanging things up crooked or unevenly spaced.
After some research and experimentation I found a great way to shop, style, and arrange a plate wall in your home. This process will take four steps:
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Shopping for the plates
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Arranging the design
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Creating a template with paper
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Nailing the plates to the wall
Shopping for the Plates
The hardest part of all of this is finding plates that look cohesive together.
What to look for
First, it is important to decide what sizes you want. Do you want a variety of different shapes and sizes? Or many of the same size?
If you are unsure, I recommend going on Pinterest, Instagram, or wherever else you like to get inspiration and see what others have done.
Another thing to consider, is the pattern of the plates. Once again, this is really up to personal tastes but my recommendation is to get a mix of both “busy” patterns and some simple ones.
As seen above, I got a mixture of floral, landscape, and simple designs to create a balance of the patterns.
Where to shop
The most affordable place to shop would be thrift shops or estate sales, but this could be a long process and could be harder to plan out ahead of time.
Recommended: Estate Sales: Everything You Need to Know
If you want to be able to fully plan your design out ahead of time and shop multiple different patterns I suggest looking online at places like Replacements.com or eBay.
Arranging the Design
If you are having trouble visualizing what this would look like, you can use the same technique used for room layouts that I described in my post about how to design layouts without Photoshop.
This is what I did before purchasing the plates I used to make sure I liked how they looked.
Create a Template
Once you have decided how you would like to arrange your plates, you can start to make a template on the wall.
Hanging things on the wall has always been daunting to me. So before hanging the plates up, I recommend tracing them on construction paper, cutting them out, and taping them to to wall.
This will allow you to see how they would look and adjust the spacing if needed.
Hang the Plates
Then once you have the paper situated where you like it you are ready to hang the plates up.
I purchased these plate hangers from Amazon and they were easy to use. You may also want to mark on each piece of paper where the nail will go.
From there you can nail in the hanger and remove the piece of paper afterwards.
Admire Your Beautiful Plate Wall
That is it! I love plate walls because they are a fun and different way to decorate a blank wall.
I look forward to adding plates to my wall throughout the years and watching it grow.
Would you do something like this in your home?
Home Office Décor Update 2021 - The Homemade Host
February 10, 2021 at 3:54 pm[…] did a whole post on my best tips to plan, shop, and install a plate wall if you want to check that out. I’ll go ahead and link all the plates I used below if you want […]