stair gallery

It took a few weeks, but I finally got it done. I've been dreaming of this since we decided to open up the stair case! I've been collecting and saving these frames for about two years now.

Brace yourselves... and don't judge. I might be going for the world record in the category of "Number of Photos Displayed in a Single Dwelling". They're all over my house, but I like it that way.

Let's call this the before:



After:
We love it!!! I love the way that photographs instantly personalize a space. I had some helpers, who were so excited to see the pictures of our family and some of their art work go up on the wall.



I heard my oldest boy (he's almost five) tell a buddy as they were headed down to play: "Hey! Look! I made that house! It's my house I made for my mom... and she HUNG IT UP!"

It put a smile on my face to see him being so proud of something he made, and so pleased that it was on the wall for all of us to enjoy.




I love the pictures, but this little set of three little hands is probably my favorite part right now.

Most of these pictures where already in the frames, just waiting for a spot to be displayed, although, as you can see, I have a few empty frames waiting for new pictures. I'll get to that soon (I hope) I have a few in mind.

Gallery walls can be tricky. I kind of approached this in a haphazard way. I just dug all of my frames out of the closet where they were being stored and started playing with them on the floor. I made a newspaper template (a la young house love, what a great idea!) of each frame and then taped them to the wall before I drove in a single nail.


I ended up moving things around a little, but stuck with the initial placing I had come up with on my floor. The hardest part was starting (as usual) and once I got going it went up fairly quickly.

I love that it helps to tie the upstairs to the downstairs, it makes it feel a lot more inviting. Now I can't wait to get going on personalizing the basement.

I was initially planning to paint all of the frames white, or a mix of white, green and blue frames. My hubby votes to keep the whites and mixed woods just as it is. So far a few of my friends who have also seen it vote to keep the mixed look. I could go either way. What do you think?