Pictures, Pictures, Everywhere!

It really is sad. We have lived in our house about 6 years now and there has been one thing missing from our humble abode. Pictures. I think this is kind of funny because I love taking pictures and archiving our lives in scrapbooks and photo books. In my old house before I got married, I had pictures everywhere. I'm not sure what happened here. Maybe I just got too busy (or lazy). With the invention of digital cameras, I rarely have pictures developed.

In the past month, I've decided that my picture hiatus needed to change. We have a huge wall in our living room that was in desperate need of something. I just wasn't sure what that "something" was. Then it came to me....pictures. Not just a couple 5 x7s or 8 x 10s thrown up there, but something bigger. Hanging pictures is always a big deal for me. I count myself as a bit of a perfectionist in many areas of my life. I like order (although you couldn't tell that by the "order" of my house these days). When it comes to hanging stuff on the walls, I'm a random person. I don't like to take the time to measure and make sure it is perfect. Enter my husband....he doesn't mind (and I think kind of likes) to measure and make sure things are done perfectly....the first time.

On our trip to the mountains in the Fall of last year, I took some pictures of trees/leaves when we went on a hike. I thought the colors would be a nice compliment to our living room, so that is the subject of our wall hanging conglomeration. I think it turned out pretty good in the end. Many thanks to my husband for doing all the hard work (in my eyes anyway).

A very empty canvas.

Painters tape to help guide the process of hanging the pictures in a very symmetrical way.
Again, a reason I'm happy to be married to a very precise person.

First two are up with no major issue.

Measuring at LEAST twice, maybe three times.

The final product. I think it looks great.
Just enough spacing and all the frames line up and are level.

Up close view of the pictures we chose.

Before and After.

So you have an idea, this is MY idea of hanging pictures. In our hallway, I replaced the pitiful
3 frames that were hanging by themselves for an eternity with this array of pictures of our family.
I like it much better. As you can see....there is NO measuring involved whatsoever. I just stuck a nail in
the wall and hung the frame. I knocked it out in about 15 minutes verses the project above!

This is the other way I like to display a lot of pictures at one time. I made a collage poster and had
it printed at an online picture company. This collage has a great mixture of vacations that we have
taken as a young married couple and later with our oldest son. It is a fun reminder of various trips we
have taken. This hangs on another wall in the hallway near my new photo wall.

The trick from here on out will be to remember to change out pictures every now and
then with new ones! That may be the hardest thing to do of all!