If you have been to my in-home studio you know that not only do I have a major love for photography, I love to decorate my home as well. I’m also a firm believer that you can never have too many family photos up in your home. Heck, I have other families photos up in my studio! Today, I decided to let you into my home and give you a little peek into one of my photo walls (yes, I have more than one…ok I have more than 2, but we can talk about those later). This little wall is an exterior wall in my home between my kitchen and living room. I had the perfect little antique drop-leaf table that I knew I wanted to put there and I knew I wanted a photo wall above it.
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Now lets start with a few “rules” that I like to follow when putting together a photo wall.
1. The size of photos that you use on that wall is based on the wall’s size, obviously. This particular area that I was working with was 46in x 120 in. So it was a pretty small (width wise) wall space to begin with. I knew that I needed to stick with the smaller frame and print sizes.
2. Now with that being said, walking into someone’s home and seeing a 4×6, 5×7, and even an 8×10 frame on a larger wall makes me cringe. Those frame and thus print sizes are really meant to be desktop sizes. Meaning you don’t usually use them on the wall. But with our wall here only being 46in wide, I’m going to make an exception with the 8×8 and the 8×10 frame. (But try never to go lower than a 8×10 frame on a wall)
3. Mixing color and black & white photos is just fine. I’ve never seen a problem in doing this and as you will see many of my photo gallery walls are of mixed photos. Nor do I think the photos need to come from the same photo session or time frame. Mix ’em up…you’ll never tire of seeing those sweet baby faces as they grow.
4. Mix up your frames too…add some color to make the whole thing pop.
5. On this particular wall the center of your photo collage needs to be eye level. I placed the antique door plate where the key hole was exactly at my eye level and started to build from there.
Now lets start to build this photo wall. Here is a confession, I usually don’t lay all the frames out on the floor first and do a trial run of exactly what I think will look good. No maam, I just start hammering away on the wall. If I don’t like the way the frame is looking on the wall or that particular layout, I pull out the nail and start again. So, there may or may not be little nail holes everywhere behind each photo. (shh, don’t tell my husband).
So this photo wall was strictly trial and error for me once I figured out which frames and photos I wanted to use. And it seemed to work! I’m happy with the placement of all the photos and their spacings.
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Once I finished with my photo wall I started accessorizing my little drop-leaf table. I knew that I was going to need some height on it so that is where my mason jar flowers come in. I usually have white roses with an empty mason jar but I changed it up for fall recently. Candles and books are always great accessorizing tools also. See how the candle and little pine cone are on top of the books? I think it is important when accessorizing to have different levels. For example my fall flowers are the highest then the black lantern is a bit lower, the the propped up book and the glass candle holder are next and the the gray books take you down to the pumpkin and the blue bird on the bottom level directly on the table. This way none of your accessories get lost with one another and everything looks separate but yet cohesive.
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So there you have it…a little glimpse into my mind when I am using photos and putting together a photo wall collage for my own home. If you have any questions / comments I’d love to hear from you!
