Pinterest-inspired Picture Collage for my Stairway Wall

It’s a stay-in-doors-because-it’s-twenty-degrees-outside kind of day here in Texas.

I love snow days, because they are generally extra productive around our house!  A day cooped up inside the house suites me just fine, but my husband can’t stand sitting around the house…

So he always tackles the honey-do-list just to keep from going crazy.  

Yeah, I really like snow days.  🙂

Several months ago, I bought frames for our kids’ pictures from last year’s family photo shoot.  I’m a cheapskate and bought frames that didn’t include hardware to hang them on the wall, so the pictures have been stacked on a chair at the top of our stairway since Christmas.

I just kept stepping around the pile, but apparently it has been driving my poor husband crazy.    

Last weekend on our date night, Jeremy insisted that we drop by Hobby Lobby to buy hardware to hang the frames (not that he had to twist my arm to go to Hobby Lobby!).

A snow day today provided the perfect opportunity to finish my project, so this is what Jeremy did for me this morning-

I should have taken a picture of my man balancing like a tight-rope-walker over our stairway, but I didn’t want to give  my grandma, or his mom, a heart attack!  (And I seriously doubt Jeremy would have let me post it here anyway.)

Suffice to say, considering the steepness of our stairway, this was a heroic act of devotion from my husband! (Didn’t I tell you he is amazing?)

We live in a large-ish old home, which I affectionately refer to as a “farm house”, that was built in the 1920’s and added on to many years later.

Our “project list” for this old house is miles long, and we may never finish it all (read: we might run out of money). But it’s fun tackling a wall here, or a floor there, and seeing our efforts slowly make the house “ours”.

My goal for the picture collage was to add visual interest to the bare, ugly wall in our narrow stairway.

This part of the house is tucked behind the main living area (the kitchen, dining room, and living room), and it’s a challenge to make it “pretty”.

I found this on Pinterest last year and decided it was just what our stairway wall needed. 

What I had to work with:

• Gorgeous pictures of my five kids (seven pictures in all).  My friend Beth did the photo shoot last year, and I ordered prints from mpix.com back in December.

• Frames.  I bought cheap black, wooden frames from Hobby Lobby for $5 (half-price) each.  Unfortunately, I forgot to buy the hardware to hang them!  Like I said, they were cheap.  The hardware cost about $5.

How we created the look: 

• I was picky about the frames, because I wanted them to be really plain so the pictures of my kids would pop out.  I opted for very plain, black frames that stood out nicely against our cream-colored walls.

• I love sepia pictures, but went with full color prints this time.  I felt like our stairway wall really needed some color.

• I generally buy 8×10 prints, but this time I went with larger photo sizes: 11×14 and 12×12.  It’s a nice perk that mpix sells quality prints super cheap!

I’m really happy with how our photo collage wall turned out!

It’s great to get the frames out of the pile and onto the wall, not to mention the fact that it makes me smile to see my gorgeous kids’ faces every time I run up or down the stairs (which is about two hundred times a day).

After a lunch of slow cooker tomato soup and grilled cheese, I showed my sister the collage.  All Julie could say was, “So how are you going to dust them?”

Miss Practical.

Well, lucky for me, I don’t mind a little dust.  

 Thanks to Jeremy, this has been a super productive day!  Maybe next year we’ll have another snow day, and I get around to dusting everything.  😉

I don’t claim to be a gifted home decor expert, but if you’d like to follow my projects and fiascos, I’d love for you to check out my new Pinterest board, Farmhouse Decor @ Kristy’s Cottage.

Follow Kristy Howard’s board Farmhouse Decor @ Kristy’s Cottage on Pinterest.

If you love Farmhouse Decor too, you might enjoy two of my favorite sites: Decor Steals and Miss Mustard Seed.