Today’s the perfect day to share our new and improved family gallery wall. Since my wife and I are enjoying a week chalk full of family events, I found it fitting to talk about how we created the perfect wall of family memories upon entering our humble abode. So, I am probably somewhere in Mexico right now chilling with the family and spending great quality time.
My father-in-law really outdid himself last year on Thanksgiving, which was also my mother-in-law’s birthday. We had gone up to the mountains—we being my brother and sister-in-law (Kalex & Lynn) with my niece and nephew (Kaylin & Gordo), my mother and father-in-law (Mayra & Freddy)—to spend Thanksgiving AND her 50th birthday in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area.
This has been her lifelong dream for as long as I could remember and you better believe we all made sure it would happen. She loves Tennessee and she loves the mountains, as do we. It was a great time spent together and, clearly, Freddy could not wait for more family time.
On the morning of Thanksgiving, we all woke ready to give her her birthday gifts and he really did a number on us. There was a bunch of papers on the dining room table of the cabin and he said for each of us to find the paper that had our name on it. Half-asleep the adults and kids were rummaging through pieces of paper looking for the one with our names on it. It was funny because we all basically looked at each other with the same confused face as we were wondering what was going on.
When we finally all sat down with our corresponding paper, we all noticed it was our names listed on the manifest for a cruise to Mexico leaving from Fort Lauderdale the weekend of their one year wedding anniversary. We all kind of cried as we were mind blown by this incredible gift. This was the perfect gift for Mayra knowing that she would do just about anything to have family time with all of us.
What a great way to celebrate her birthday near the ones she loves most and to do the same for her wedding anniversary as well with all expenses paid! That is exactly what I’m doing right now. Yay. I am possibly basking in the sun or tubing through a cave as I travel with my family to Mexico on the Independence of the Seas with Royal Caribbean. More to come on that at a later post…
Family is so important to me. Thank you, Jesus, for our beautiful and loving, ever growing family. They may live far away but it doesn’t stop us from staying connected. Since I don’t see their faces every day, we made sure we set up our family gallery wall so that every time we go up and down the stairs we see each and every single one of their beautiful faces.
Each picture means something to us, whether it be a photo from a holiday or important event in which it took place or just the memory of a very good and active day together. You can pick your favorite pictures for your gallery wall or ask your family members to send their favorite pictures of themselves to you. Whatever you choose it’s your family wall so you can decorate as you please.
It’s all a matter of your family structure and your absolute favorite people. If you want to keep them close, a family wall is the way to go. We chose to mix-and-match frames to give the wall some character and depth. We plan on continuing to add to it up along the staircase wall. To enhance the look of the high ceilings. We already have pretty high ceilings throughout the house, yet; they can be enhanced by working all the way towards the top of the wall.
I am learning more and more each day about true home decorating since I’m not interior designer. We want our house to be the cozy and chic farmhouse that we dream it to be. Our family wall was the perfect way to start since we had prior inspiration from the Raleigh house—when we created our first family gallery wall in the living room. We used a few of those same frames and photographs for our new family wall. We picked up some more frames at IKEA and Dollar Tree to add more photos now that this wall was much larger than the one we used for our family wall back at the Raleigh house last year.
You can snag a bunch of wonderful frames at the dollar store for a fraction of the price elsewhere. If you have extra frames laying around, like we often do, you can use those as well and add as you go. As time passes, certain memories change because new ones are made and you can continue to add or omit from your family experience and you can express this in your very own family gallery wall.
XO
- Frames
- Photographs
- Paper
- Pencil
- Painter’s tape
- Nails
- Hammer
- Level
- Measuring tape
- Print desired photos in color tone of choice. Mix and match your frames with different shapes colors and sizes. Insert photographs into corresponding frames.
- Using the images provided above as reference, create the design of your stylish gallery inspired photo wall.
- Compose your gallery wall on the floor with the desired design and scheme. Keeping at least 2 to 4 inches between each piece of art. Make sure you off-center the large piece. The goal is to have no true focal point.
- Create paper cutouts of the frames. Lay your frames out on their backs on top of the paper. Using your pencil, trace around the outside and cut out the shapes. Make sure to note which cutout goes to each frame. Make a mark on the cutout with your pencil of where the hook goes. Tape cutouts to the wall with painter’s tape like the arrangement on the floor.
- Hammer nails in where indicated on paper, remove cutouts, and hang frames.
- We printed all of our photos in black-and-white.
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