GridLayout is often not the best choice for buttons, although it might be for your application. A good reference is the tutorial on using Layout Managers. If you look at the GridLayout example, you'll see the buttons look a little silly -- way too big.
A better idea might be to use a FlowLayout for your buttons, or if you know exactly what you want, perhaps a GroupLayout. (Sun/Oracle recommend that GroupLayout or GridBag layout are better than GridLayout when hand-coding.)