After years and years of wanting to do it (and waiting until my youngest was a little older and I could represent my children equally), I finally found time over the holidays to put together a stairwell gallery of black and white candids of our family. Is it weird that my stairwell is now my favorite room in the house? I love it because every single photo has a story behind it and makes me smile. I also love it because I can change out and update the photos easily — the backs just pop right off!
For any of you that are interested in doing this in your own home, here’s how I did it:
I used Cottage Living magazine’s (man, I wish it was still in publication) method of laying out the gallery before I started putting nails in my freshly painted walls. I first decided which pictures I wanted to use. Then I looked on Pottery Barn’s website to see all the different variations of sizes and options of their wood gallery frames and determined which photos I wanted in each one. I then cropped and sized the images and had them printed at my lab. After that, I sketched out how I wanted the frames on the walls using different orientations and sizes, with and without mats for interest. From there, I purchased the frames then sat down and traced them out on brown kraft paper. I know it sounds like a lot of effort, but I would have swiss cheese looking walls from all the wrong nail holes if I hadn’t done that! I was able to masking tape all the kraft paper “frames” on the wall, measuring in between each one to make sure my spaces in between were even, make adjustments and then put a hole for the nail and rip away the paper. Finally it was time to hang the actual framed images. It worked out perfectly! As a finishing touch, I set a level (or your iPhone if you’ve downloaded the handy app) on the top of each image just to make sure everything was hanging straight.
Give it a try! It’s a fun project that will give you years of joy just walking down your stairs every day! A once very sterile and boring stairwell will completely come to life!
I’ve seen it and it’s fun AND gorgeous! Would love to do it in my house. Thanks for the tips, Heather!
It would look great in your stairwell to your playroom too Laura!