Ever since we moved into our house 5 years ago, I’ve been struggling to figure out how to style our dining room wall.

You can see how it used to look in my post “How to Hang Wall Art Perfectly the First Time”.  Those wreaths. That picture.  SO over it.

I was happy when I got the mirror from Pottery Barn, but I literally could not stand the wreaths on my wall any more.  They needed to go…  Like yesterday.

I LOVE gallery walls, but I can never seem to find exactly what I’m looking for, so it never ends up happening for me.   I got an idea to try to style my wall with plates, and I went for it.

I headed to thrift stores and found most of my plates there.  I ended up getting 20 plates for $16!   Score!

That’s a lot of plates.

I didn’t use them all, so I just donated the ones I didn’t use back to the stores I got them from.

I wanted some bold patterned plates in the mix, so I ended up picking up a couple plates at Pier One.   Not as cheap as the thrift store, but definitely worth it!

I started by laying out the plates in a pattern on the floor.  I cut a piece of paper to represent where the mirror would be.

It was crucial that I took a picture because I ended up referring back to it a bunch while I was hanging them on the wall.

After I figured out what plates I was using, I put the hangers on the plates.  The wire plate hangers drive me crazy because you can see the wire around the plate when you hang them.  I found Plate Hangers at Hobby Lobby that adhere to the back of plates.  You can also get them on Amazon, here.  Specifically for hanging plates on the wall.  No visible hanger.  Perfect.

Next I traced each plate on paper and cut them out.  I laid out the pattern with the cut out paper on the wall first so I could make sure I liked it.

I used the same process to hang the plates that I used in my “How to Hang Wall Art Perfectly the first time” post.

I love this because I feel like I can continue to add to it if I want to!

What do you think?