The Top 81 DIY Wall Decor Ideas

Everyone has an artist’s license when it comes to home décor. Use yours to create unique DIY wall décor in every room of your house.

Don’t be intimidated by the thought of DIYing your own wall décor. Whether you’re designing a gallery wall out of purchased artwork or painting your own canvas, DIY wall décor is easy and fun to do. Enjoy scrolling through our gallery of favorite DIY wall décor ideas and be sure to save your favorites. Inspiration for every room is just a click away.

1. Living Room

Each wall in your living room is a perfect blank canvas ready to hold your best DIY ideas. Keep your wall décor ideas scaled to the size of the wall in question. For example, if you have a particularly large wall, such as the kind in a double-story living room, fill the space with a series of large coordinating pieces. A small wall, such as the area over your mantle, can be accented with smaller framed art or mirrors.

Create an accent wall by painting the entire wall in black or another dark hue. Use metallic or printed washi tape to make an oversized wallpaper-like design. Remember that rotating your existing gallery wall pieces is a totally free way to give your living room a makeover. Switch out a picture or clock with items from another room to keep each space visually interesting.

 

2. Office

You’ll enjoy your work hours more if they’re spent in a well-decorated office that reflects your personality and style. Function should meet form in the office, so include a wall clock, bulletin board, and shelves into any gallery walls you have planned for your workspace.

However, avoid visually cluttering your office with too many details. Lots of open wall space equals clarity of mind and design.

Buy a 12×12” or larger glass filled frame and cut a vintage map to fit. Use your new DIY wall art idea as a dry-erase board to keep track of upcoming projects or tasks. If your business or life motto is represented by a certain word, slogan, or logo, have a custom vinyl wall decal made. Apply it in a prominent spot and use framed artwork to create a total focal wall.

 

3. Art

The easiest way to create impressive wall décor is to purchase artwork that fits well with your overall room design. However, it can be hard to find a perfect piece that’s ready for hanging. That’s when DIY wall art projects come into play.

Enlarge your favorite sheet music on a copier and frame it to hang over a piano or in a music room. Create a triptych, or a series of three united images, by painting simple graphic shapes or minimalist landscapes on three canvases. Hang them in a row over the bed or sofa.

Choose one big painting to center on the room’s largest wall and accent it with wall sconces, hanging planters, and/or framed mirror tiles. Make or purchase drawings that coordinate and display them together for an impressive gallery wall.

 

4. Farmhouse Style

Antique decorative plates add a sense of whimsy to a farmhouse dining room. You can even hot glue antique spoons to a plain wood frame or around an embroidery hoop to make another DIY craft to hang beside your plate collection. Spray paint a papier-mâché monogram letter with zinc paint and hang it in the middle of the embroidery hoop or inside a simple laurel wreath.

Vintage signs and inspirational quotes fit well into any farmhouse-inspired gallery wall. Hang a botanical wallpaper or fabric sample in a rustic wood picture frame for a quick farmhouse DIY project. Old wood crates and vintage baskets make gorgeous farmhouse wall accents. Paint or leave bare, and use them to hold tiny flower vases, small books, and other little decorative items.

 

5. Bathroom

A bathroom typically has small walls that are perfect for trying out creative paint techniques or hanging a piece of exquisite wallpaper. Naturally, you must be mindful of moisture when choosing bathroom DIY wall art ideas. DIY framed prints can begin to wrinkle under their glass after just a few steamy showers, so choose wall decoration options that can handle a damp environment.

Sponge paint techniques have made a comeback, and it’s easy to make a simple repetitive pattern on the wall over the toilet. This is an affordable alternative to buying wallpaper and makes an attractive background behind floating shelves. Tile is always an ideal medium for bathroom wall decoration, but you may need to hire a pro to install it correctly. Tile mosaics or a stained glass wall hanging are great choices for bathroom wall décor.

 

6. Hanging Decor

Antique shutters and windows are amazing DIY wall décor ideas that work in nearly any room. Turn an old window into a frame to showcase a series of black-and-white family photos or coordinating botanical prints. Then hang an antique shutter on each side of the window.

If you don’t know how to sew but have a cute piece of fabric that you want to show off, turn it into a wall hanging. Simply wrap the material around a piece of wood or Styrofoam and staple it on the back. This also works for wallpaper samples. Mount the panel on hinges and it becomes the perfect way to hide a fuse panel, alarm box, or wall-mounted safe.

Another great DIY wall art idea for the non-artistic is to paint popsicle sticks or small sticks of scrap wood four or five assorted colors. Arrange them on a piece of wood or heavy cardboard and glue them down. Frame them for a colorful wall hanging suitable for any room.

 

7. Mirror Decor

A well-placed mirror is a simple wall decoration that truly elevates the room’s appearance. Mirrors reflect the room’s natural light during the day and multiply the glow of low lighting at night. If you need to help a small room look big and airy, mirrors are a great wall décor idea. If you rent your home and cannot hang heavy items on the wall, rest a large, sturdy mirror on the floor, propped against the wall.

Center a large framed mirror over your fireplace or over the bed. You can accessorize around it with smaller art pieces, wreaths, inspirational quotes, or wall decals. Mirrors of any size help expand a small space. Even a collection of tiny framed mirrors adds a sparkling accent to a blank wall.

 

8. Bedroom

Ideally, the bed should be placed against the longest bedroom wall, which makes that wall the room’s primary focal point. Décor ideas include adding wainscoting, beadboard, or shiplap to this wall only, painting it in a color that contrasts the paint on the other three walls. Hang a wreath over the paneling or line up a series of coordinating prints.

In a child’s bedroom, a colorful themed wall mural is almost always a great idea. For a heartwarming piece of DIY art in your baby’s nursery, frame a beautiful dress or cute shirt that you or your partner wore as a baby and hang it over the changing table. Make a fun night light alternative by using string lights and a canvas to make constellation art that can be plugged in at night for a warmly comforting glow.

Inspirational signs and plaques are popular accents in children’s and adults’ bedrooms alike. If you cannot find your favorite sentiment or quote, create your own on a piece of painted wood or a blank canvas. Hand-letter or stencil the words or order custom made easy-to-apply vinyl transfers online.

 

9. Modern

Because the modern aesthetic honor simplicity, don’t overdo it when it comes to wall décor ideas. DIY wall art in a modern home can easily be made by using masking tape to make geometric shapes on a canvas. Paint it with colors that match your décor and let the paint dry. Peel off the tape and be impressed by your work of art.

If you love pixel art, you don’t have to be an artist to turn a favorite landscape photo into a modern geometric wall art piece that captures all the mood but none of the details. In this large-scale paint-by-number DIY craft idea, simply use photo editing software to pixelate the image. Use a ruler to draw a grid on paper, canvas, or wood that is equivalent to the number of squares on your pixelated image. Then purchase paint in each color represented and fill in the squares accordingly.

 

10. Frame Decor

Repurposing thrift store frames is one of the least expensive DIY wall décor ideas. Remove the artwork from behind the glass of a lovely salvaged frame and replace it with a colorful piece of paper or fabric. Hang it in the kitchen for a unique dry-erase menu board or shopping list.

For a coastal home or mermaid-themed child’s room, cut dozens of circles out of posterboard and spray paint them gold or other metallic hues. Overlap them into a fish scale-like pattern and glue them onto a canvas or wood panel sized to fit your salvaged picture frame.

Turn to pom poms for a whimsical DIY wall art idea suitable for a child’s room or a bohemian style home. Simply glue pom poms into a random pattern, wavy stripes, or cloudlike formations inside a picture frame.

 

11. Shelf Decor

Wall mounted shelves add ambience to a room as well as valuable storage and display space. Having even one or two strategically mounted floating shelves frees up valuable horizontal space. It’s the easiest way to reclaim kitchen counter, bathroom counter, and office desktop space for important tasks.

When storing items on a wall shelf, take care to arrange things in an aesthetic manner. Vary the height of picture frames, vases, candles, plants, and other shelf-top décor. Hang a metal monogram or mandala over the shelf for a creative touch or place a mirror in that space to open up a smaller room.