How to Create the Perfect Medal Wall at Home

A medal wall isn’t a display. It’s a statement. Here’s how to build one that does your achievements justice.

There is something quietly powerful about walking past a wall of medals every morning. Not because it’s impressive to anyone else, but because it’s a daily reminder of every early morning, every hard training session, every finish line you pushed through when you wanted to stop.

If you’ve been leaving your medals in a drawer or a box (we covered why that happens in our first post), this guide is the next step.

Here’s exactly how to build a medal wall at home, one that grows with you, looks great, and actually means something.

Before you buy anything or drill a single hole, spend a few minutes choosing where your medal wall will live. This decision matters more than most people think.

The best medal walls are in high-traffic, visible spaces. Not a spare room nobody enters. Not a cupboard. The whole point is that you see it regularly, so it does its job as a motivation tool.

Good locations to consider:

•       Your home gym or training space: the obvious choice, and the most motivating

•       A hallway or passage you walk through daily

•       Your home office or study: particularly good if you work from home

•       A bedroom wall you face when you wake up

Avoid walls that get direct sunlight all day (it can fade race bibs and photos over time) and avoid damp areas like bathrooms or garages with poor ventilation, especially if your hanger isn’t stainless steel.

Once you know where your wall is going, the next decision is how to arrange your medals. There’s no single right answer, it depends on your collection and what feels meaningful to you. Here are the three approaches that work best.

Chronological order: your sporting journey told in sequence

Hang your medals in the order you earned them, oldest to newest. This approach tells the story of your progression as an athlete. You can see your first nervous 5km at the start and your latest achievement at the end. It’s personal, honest, and often the most emotionally resonant arrangement.

By sport or event type: clean and organised

Group your running medals together, your cycling medals together, your triathlon medals together. This works particularly well for multi-sport athletes whose collection spans several disciplines. It’s visually tidy and immediately communicates the breadth of what you do.

By importance or pride of place: hero medals first

Put your most significant achievements front and centre. Your Comrades medal. Your first Ironman. Your first marathon finish. Surround them with the rest of the collection. This approach creates a natural focal point on the wall and draws the eye to what matters most.

Your medal hanger is the anchor of the wall. Everything else builds around it. Here’s how to create a display that goes beyond just the medals and tells the full story of your athletic life.

Race bibs and numbers

Race bibs are one of the most underrated display items. They’re colourful, personal, and immediately tell a story, the race, the date, your number. You can pin them directly to the wall around the hanger, or use a simple clip frame to keep them flat and protected. Your Comrades bib, your first marathon number, your child’s first athletics day number, these belong on the wall alongside the medals.

Finish line and race photos

A printed finish line photo next to the medal from that race is one of the most powerful combinations on a medal wall. The photo captures the emotion; the medal is the proof. You don’t need expensive frames, even simple clip frames or pinned prints work well. Keep the photos roughly the same size for a clean look.

Motivational lace tags

If you use lace tags on race day, a single word or phrase that carries you through the hard kilometres, they deserve a place on the wall too. Pin them near the medals from the races they carried you through. It’s a small detail that adds a deeply personal layer to the display.

Certificates and milestone cards

Parkrun milestone certificates, finisher certificates, PB records, these can be framed and hung alongside the medals. If your child is building their own collection, their school athletics certificates belong here too.

Not all medal hangers are built the same, and if you’re investing in a permanent display the material choice matters more than most people realise.

Wood: looks warm but warps and cracks in humid conditions over time. Paint and finishes fade. Not ideal for garages or outdoor-adjacent spaces.

Acrylic / plastic: affordable and lightweight, but brittle. Yellows with UV exposure. Doesn’t carry weight well once a collection grows. They can also snap with the weight of the medals, as your collection grows

Stainless steel: rust-resistant, UV-stable, built to hold significant weight. The same material used in quality surgical equipment and outdoor architecture. It won’t warp, fade, crack or corrode. For a display that represents years of achievement, stainless steel is the only material worth investing in.

One of the most common reasons people delay building a medal wall is waiting until they have “enough” medals to justify it. There is no threshold. Start now, with what you have.

A single medal on a quality hanger on a well-chosen wall already looks intentional. It already tells a story. And every medal you add after that deepens it.

The athletes with the most impressive medal walls didn’t build them in a day. They built them one race at a time, over years. That’s the point. The wall grows as you grow.

A medal wall is one of the few things in your home that’s entirely, personally yours. Every medal on it was earned by you, on a day when you showed up and did the work. No one else can put a medal on that wall. No one can take one off.

It’s not decoration. It’s documentation.

Build the wall. Let it remind you every day of what you’re capable of. Then go earn the next medal to hang on it.