Football Decor Gallery Wall for the "Man Cave"

Be inspired by this football decor (specifically Kansas City Chiefs wall art) in the basement. From vintage football pieces to modern-day sports wall decor, there's something for everyone.

As we started adding furniture back in to our basement, I knew I wanted to collect, make, and display a bunch of football decorations (specifically, Kansas City Chiefs decor). The obvious way to do that on a long wall was to make a sports gallery wall.

Non-grid style gallery walls haven't been easy for me. There's a certain balance you have to achieve for them to look good and, for some reason, I've struggled to find that balance.

Regardless, I set off to do Kansas City Chiefs framed pictures wall art because I knew I wanted to display a number of things and I also knew that it would help ground the sitting area.

Creating multiple use spaces out of one long room

We wanted to create a TV watching area as well as a pub table/game room out of one long, rectangular room. To help anchor the sectional in the "TV side" of the room, it made sense to try to build the sports-themed gallery wall on the wall above the sectional.

I started looking for Kansas City Chiefs art that I loved and connected with and slowly bought a few pieces. I quickly realized that just having Chiefs wall decor wasn't going to give me a look that I loved. I'm not used to using primary colors like red and yellow in my decor so that was hard but I was also missing the vintage charm that I've used and loved throughout the rest of my home.

I had never considered looking for vintage football decor, but one day, I started looking for that on Etsy and eBay. And, you know what... there's a lot of really neat vintage football art, brass sculptures, pins/badges, etc. out there!

You could do this on Pinterest, too, but I wanted to include some of our photos and things that we had so it made more since to just keep it in a computer folder.

From there, I was able to see what I liked and didn't like and went a strep further and created a mock-up of the gallery wall for my space.

Creating a visual mock-up of a gallery wall is so helpful because you can see if your art pieces work together visually before you buy. It's also helpful to be able to move art pieces around on the computer to "create the gallery wall" look.

Once I created the mock-up of some of the pieces I had, I knew that I could get the "elevated-chic sports wall decor" look that I had envisioned.

Thrifting frames and collecting specific art ideas

I slowly started collecting mid-size to large wall art frames (I got mine at Habitat for Humanity over a few trips), links to Chiefs poster options that I was considering, and started purchasing the football room decor pieces that I knew I loved. It took me months to find pieces that I loved and pieces that would work together.

I definitely didn't have an exact plan for all the sports memorabilia I had collected. I collected pieces that I loved and figured that I could make them work.

A few of the pieces were obviously going to work: the newspaper from winning the Super Bowl that I framed, the vintage black and white art and the football. Other items, like our personal photos, I just wasn't sure on.

Someone might be able to do a to-scale gallery wall and plan it just perfectly, but I can't. I bought sports wall decor that I loved knowing that I might over-buy but hoping that, if that happened, it would end up being decor for a different part of the basement.

I also bought a few items that I just loved, not knowing how they would end up being displayed! I'll be sure to point out those DIY football art pieces below.

Football Decor Gallery Wall

I focused on mixing in a few black and white art pieces to combat the red/yellow of Chiefs decor.

Mixing in high and low pieces was also a big factor in this space. A vintage football and a football wall mount gave the wall some dimension. My dad had NFL mini helmets from when he was a kid and I found a vintage cash drawer insert to put them in and hung them on the wall.

The oil painting is an original piece by Vanessa Lacy. The brass belt buckles were found on Etsy (here's a great one) and I super-glued them in a shadow display box for interest.

I framed the newspaper of when they won the Super Bowl. I also did a DIY book frame for a vintage football book that I found.

The little art piece on top is an original slide photo of the very first game at Arrowhead. I found the slide on Etsy with a deep dive of the term "Kansas City Chiefs decor."

The larger art piece of Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes is an original watercolor by Caitlyn Snelling.

I'm really proud of how the football art pieces came together. They are all sports art that speaks to me, that fit my home decor style and feel, honestly, right at home in this space. The basement decor is definitely more casual than my upstairs, but that just encourages everyone to sit back, kick their feet up, and have a good time.