Hanging Photographs: A Work In Progress

CAUTION: This is a work in progress. Things may look a bit crazy. Stick it out. It will get better soon (I hope.).

For those who you who follow our blog, you know that we moved early this year & have struggled to get everything finished just the way we want it. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about catch up here by reading about another tiny victory and here for my inspiration.

Well, thanks to Mr. Rain yesterday, we got a full day off work and got a lot accomplished. All together, I believe we hung up 27 frames in 4 different parts of the house. Our biggest project was a college of old signs, photographs, and other special things we hung in the stairway that connects the main floor of the house to the downstairs. It is a weird shaped space where the stairs make a 90-degree turn. Another odd part to this wall is that because it is part stairway, it has an odd-angle in the middle of the wall. Not a simple square shape.

Here are a few shots of what we've done so far:

The view from upstairs looking down

As you come down the stairs

Where the stairs turn

In the downstairs hallway, looking back

As you can tell, it is a work in progress, but I'm super proud of the way it all is turning out. Here is a great way to do this. Here is my way:

First, I measured out how much wall space I was going to have in the floor of Ezra room. Then, I laid out all my things and frames and started arranging. (This part was the hardest & longest). I kept arranging and rearranging until I got it just the way I wanted it. Next, I started moving frames from the floor to the wall. I found it easiest to work from the outside in. I tweaked a few things as we went (like I decided not to hang stuff from ceiling to floor but left a bit of wall space clear at the bottom) but stuck pretty close to the original design.

Next, I went through and marked what I wanted to put in each frame. For some, I simply added a sticky note with a description of what was going inside the frame.


For others, I tacked up a photograph to put in the frame. Some (like this one) will have to be ordered in a larger size.

We also hung up frames over our shoe bench. I plan to replace these African beasts with some of the photographs we recently had taken of our family.


This is the rest of this wall. Planning to insert family photograph into empty frame. (Do you recognize the hallway to the kids' rooms from my earlier post?)


Alexis' room got a few new prints. Nine month old Alexis now hangs next to a drawing she did of her Papa.


Ezra's room was a design challenge because two of his walls are poured concrete. Not fun to try to hammer nails into. So Jamison came up with a great idea to have photographs on his walls. Frames hang suspended with chains from a metal rod. Very industrial. Very boy.


(Don't mind the artwork. We found these frames on sale at Kirkland's for a bargain. Jamison has been photographing old Mustang cars. And soon it will be bye-bye bears and angels and hello muscle car.)



Another soon-to-be Mustang photograph will grace this little lighted nook in Ezra's room.


I love all that we've done & can't wait to share the finished results with you! Want to know another great thing that came from all this??? Our guest shower is not longer filled with frames!


Still might be drafty showering without a shower curtain. :) Hopefully, we will take care of that soon, too.