Decorating Tips with the Own the Year Big Wall Calendar

1. Start With the Right Wall

Before choosing baskets, plants or shelves, decide where the calendar will actually be useful. The prettiest planning wall won’t help if you have to walk across the house to check it.

• Home office
• Kitchen or breakfast area
• Family command center
• Entryway or mudroom
• Classroom or homeschool room
• Creative studio or small business office
• Bedroom or study area

Families often do best in the kitchen or entryway, where everyone passes through. Remote workers and business owners may prefer the home office. The best location is the one you’ll look at every day. Measure first: you’ll want a clear 4 ft x 3 ft space at a comfortable height.

2. Treat Your Calendar Like Wall Decor

Instead of hiding a large calendar, treat it like artwork and build the wall around it. A minimalist planning wall might be just the calendar, one floating shelf, a small plant, a framed print, a pen holder and a small basket. A little breathing room makes a big calendar feel deliberate.

3. Use Floating Shelves to Frame It

One shelf above the calendar or two smaller shelves beside it give you decoration and storage at once. A good rule: combine something useful, something natural and something personal, such as planning supplies, a small plant and a family photo. It looks styled without feeling staged.

4. Add Greenery to Soften the Space

Calendars have a lot of straight lines. Plants don’t. One or two are usually enough: pothos, snake plants, ZZ plants, small succulents, spider plants or good faux greenery. Place a small plant on a nearby shelf, or a larger floor plant beside a family command center.

5. Choose a Color Palette First

Repeat those colors in baskets, frames, planters, desk accessories and markers, and the wall feels coordinated rather than randomly decorated.

6. Make Color-Coding Part of the Decor

Color-coding is useful and it makes the calendar more interesting to look at. Keep the system simple, such as blue for work, green for personal, purple for school, orange for family and red for deadlines, or one color per family member. Every Own The Year calendar comes with 125 planning stickers and 2 dry-erase markers to get you started.

7. Keep Useful Accessories Within Reach

The best planning-wall accessories are the ones you’ll use: markers for appointments and notes, removable stickers for things that may move, small baskets to contain supplies, a shelf for notebooks and clips or hooks for papers. If you have to dig through a drawer for a marker, you’re less likely to update the calendar.

8. Style It for a Home Office

Pair the calendar with warm materials so the room doesn’t feel corporate: light or medium wood, a good desk lamp, neutral storage boxes, a plant or two, simple framed art and a woven basket. In a minimalist office, let the calendar provide the structure and keep everything else quiet.

9. Turn It Into a Classroom Planning Wall

Teachers and homeschool families can surround the calendar with student work, learning goals, bookshelves and supply organizers, while keeping the area right around it clear so it reads from across the room. For a school-year layout, choose the 2026-2027 Midyear/Academic Own The Year Calendar (July 2026 to June 2027) or the Undated Midyear/Academic Own The Year Calendar.

10. Use the Entryway for a Daily Check-In

An entryway or mudroom is where people naturally pause before leaving. Pair the calendar with coat hooks, a bench, key hooks and mail storage at a comfortable viewing height. Check the calendar, grab what you need, head out the door.

11. Create a Cozy Bedroom Planning Corner

For personal planning, build a small corner near a reading chair, desk or bookshelf instead of turning the whole wall into an office. Add soft lighting and a plant, and use the calendar for fitness and reading goals, birthdays, travel plans and habits.

12. Give Your Planning Wall a Purpose

Before you decorate, ask what you want the wall to help you do. Once you know, the decor follows:

The best planning wall is the one you’ll actually use.

Common Questions

Start With the Calendar

You don’t need a magazine-ready wall or matching containers everywhere. Choose a wall you’ll naturally see, add a few useful accessories, pick a simple color system and adjust as your needs change. That’s the beauty of a big wall calendar: it can be functional and personal at the same time.