Decorate: Hallway Photos

by Designing Mom "Shop" Contributor Carina

This image of our hallway that ran in Domino Magazine has generated so many emails and I think that this is a great thing to do in time for the holidays and holiday parties (although it's possible you should have started the process a few weeks ago in a little less stressful period... but that's the way it goes!).

It's nice to do this project in a space where you would normally not stop, this gives your friends and family a reason to stop and look--a hallway is a good place or an entry or even a staircase! I like to go to a few antique shops or second hand stores (the cheaper kind) they usually have a box of old frames and these work perfectly. If they need glass you can either do that at your hardware store or at a frame shop and it's pretty inexpensive. I like to mix these old frames together with new Ikea frames that are simple with clean lines. While you are at the second hand store, check the old paintings, you can usually find some gems laying around or on the walls of the antique shop.

We use old family photos, the kids school projects and artwork (one of ours is so faded so that it's just a piece of paper in a frame!), and then some old paintings picked up from our travels. I like to use just a few large and then lots of small pieces mixed into the wall. I think it's also nice to take pieces of toys or favorite rocks, etc and put them on the frame edges, little kids really like this--it's a little bit of hide and seek. I think it's nice to mix in some mirrors as well--these can be old or new, but they are a nice way to break up all of the images and as you pass through to look at the photos your image becomes one of the photos in the mirror! We used many different colors for the frames, silver, black and natural wood but it's also nice to unify the wall with one color frame like black or white. I think it's best to use snap-shots and not staged photos or at least mix of the two.

Good luck and have fun with your wall!