This picture ledge saved me from my addiction to gallery walls

I am thinking of naming my first child Mosslanda.

Mosslanda Ikea Picture Ledge Kuchar doesn’t roll off the tongue, but this product is important enough to me that I need to honor it in a profound way. (Also, this is not me letting everyone know I am pregnant. Mom, I am not pregnant.)

I had an addiction to gallery walls. “Just one more,” I’d say, as I hammered another ill-fitting nail into my walls—missing the stud, of course.

I’m also a chronic renter, which means moving always required gallons of spackle for patching up holes.

Gallery walls are great—in theory. If you are able to hang a beautiful gallery wall with excellent composition, I am so happy for you—I really am! I am not that person, though. I really wanted to be, and until I found the Mosslanda picture ledge at Ikea, my walls were just a reminder of my failure—a failure that was sprinkled on the walls of nearly every room of the various apartments I rented over the years.

You see, this picture ledge is the happy place for people who started reading The Life- Changing Magic of Tidying Up with the best intentions but then stopped midway because they couldn’t refrain from balling up their clean socks, nor could they bear to get rid of their books. It is hope.

It is a clean slate, literally. It’s a ledge, and you can cram as much art onto it as you want, because it has a depth of 4 ³⁄₄ inches. It comes in two lengths: 21 ³⁄₄ inches and 45 ¹⁄₄ inches. I have both. I take a maximalist approach to minimalism.

There are two colors, black and white, though I suppose you could paint them the color of your wall if you want them to “disappear” into it. Sure, fine. Do what you want.

I plop framed posters, family photos, original works of art, and prints on them. Hell, I even have a pennant hanging from one. There are tiles, there are mementos. My dog’s Canine Good Citizen certificate sits on the one in the living room, while a tintype photo of us rests on top of it without obstructing the words.

I love the way it looks.

I look at these ledges and I see my family, my friends, my hobbies. I feel warm. I am happy.

Never do I look at the ledges and think, “Wow, the spacing between that gold-leaf frame with the Beyoncé pun (To infinity and Beyoncé) and the wedding photo of my grandparents is off. Better get the hammer and nails.” It is such a relief.

I have so much art crammed onto my ledges and it still looks so clean. The greatest thing? There’s no permanence. When I grow tired of one of my husband’s dozens of 311 posters (don’t ask), I just swap them out for something else. It is a love story. A love story about harmony between my art and my home.

Sally Kuchar is Curbed’s cities director.