We have very few knick-knacks sitting around. They get dusty and I don't like to take the time to dust them. Plus, I think my husband would live in a modern cube if he had his way. However, I wanted to put up some family photos - family is so important to me.
I recalled an idea in a Rosamund Pilcher novel that I read years ago. One of the characters lived in a very modern flat, very white and spare. She painted one narrow wall bright blue and hung all her family photos tightly on that wall.
So that's what I'm doing at the base of our stairs,
sans the blue. I add a family photo as I come across one we love.
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| Me, my sister, and brother, early 1980s. |
I'm using clip frames, which I pick up every time I go past a craft store with a 40% off coupon - the small ones cost less than $2 that way.
How do you handle family photos?
Shove 'em in a drawer and say, "I really must do that great thing Margo does with the clip frames."
ReplyDeleteI like this idea, especially how you are letting it evolve.
ReplyDeleteCan you believe that we have almost no family photos displayed in our home. I know, horrible! Art on our walls is just our heavy leaning. We do have a dream/goal of doing a large grouping on one wall that incorporates old and recent family photos, all in coordinating frames. It'll probably take us 3.5 years to accomplish unless I take your approach and let it evolve...
Christian, yes, before this wall we had basically no family photos around the house either! I have to tell you, I don't think my husband is terribly keen on my approach. I hang things a little wonky sometimes. . .
ReplyDeleteWe lived in our first house for over 2 years, finally I got hubby to hang up all the family photos on the wall the way I wanted... looked great. Two weeks later we decided to move and they got taken down! ugh.
ReplyDeleteBeen in this house over a year before I finally grabbed those frames from the cupboard and stuck them up in any existing holes in the wall because the place just didn't feel "homely". We are in desperate need of new photos and frames though. I don't have any pics of the two other kids, only my eldest! haha.
I like white frames so I've got a combination of styles, but they're all white. And arranged randomly. I love the idea of a family photo wall/gallery. xo
I have a few choice "old" family photos about...Matt and his brother playing guitar on a log in the Boulder river, my sisters and I piled across my dad's lap, a rather glamor shot of me as a two year old...and then a few that I swap out every year when I print off photos from the year past (the "new" family photos). Its a pretty nice blend, but heavy on more recent photos I think.
ReplyDeleteI pick up the frames at garage sales and second-hand stores mostly.
And at my house its Matt who hangs things wonky and me who frets about it. : )
I love it!!!! I went through a heavy family photo phase in my 20s and had a nice grouping of black and whites above our buffet at one point but we've sort of drifted from that. Right now I have photos in frames on our dresser in our bedroom, and I hope when we do our major basement renovation (later this year, Lord willing) that I will have a wall of photos at the base of the stairs OR somewhere in the basement itself. I have many black and whites that I've collected over the years and I do love seeing them. I have a hard time w/ visual clutter (my life feels so cluttered these days with everything else that I have a hard time with decorative objects) and so I like something sparse (like your frames) but cohesive (ditto). I'm a bit of a minimalist yet I love photos. It's weird.
ReplyDeleteCute display! We did something similar with wooden frames from Ikea.;)
ReplyDeleteI've read that book and I got the same idea from it! At first I put up matching frames but with the kids running up and down the stairs, I was tired of all the straightning. So I took an old french door, flipped it on it's side and hung it on the wall. I made the pictures up on boards and placed them behind the glass, resting on the bottem of each glass section. I love it, it works great, I can make up new pictures when I want a change and they don't get all wonky!
ReplyDeleteNicole, do you have a photo on your blog? I love your idea.
DeleteBut the wonky is what makes it perfect! I think you have to have the family photos up somewhere or it just doesn't feel like home.
ReplyDelete