I don't have any family pics out now. Used to keep a few in the old office. Someday when we finish the new office I plan to hang old pics of our parents. When my mom passed a couple years ago I found some beautiful photos of her as a girl and young woman. I framed them and had them at her viewing.

I think some people go overboard with family pics, but it's really a personal thing. There's no right or wrong.

I have photos of my kids in my stairway - cookie cutter unoriginal, but I like to walk up the stairs time after time and look at them as they have grown. Some black and whites, mostly color, all them. To be fair, there is one photo of them with each set of grandparents, but otherwise just them.

In my upstairs hall, I plan on doing a family tree wall. It will contain a pic of my hubby and I as kids, one of our family, his parents, his family, his grandparents and then the same of mine. We don't live around family here, so I think it's cool to have them with us in pictures at least.

I started with the Pottery Barn catalog and collected frames. Painted them all black. Scanned some of my favorite shots of my children and included one or two of our parents. Printed them all out in black and white, framed them and . . . I love this wall!
My favorite is the little rectangle below the large sqaure frame--it's my 32 year old son's first grade writing assignment of his full name over and over.

I have two photo walls in my home. One, in our entryway is all sepia with cream mats, and is just of my children, husband, and me. I have another in our hallway of sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews in color, all with matching frames. Both look nice, but I have to say my favorite it the sepia collection. Looks very cohesive.

I have a pile of photos just waiting to be hung in the stairway, if I ever get to it. Most of the pics I'm planning to hang are of my kids at various ages (oldest is 18 now) and from various vacations. Outside the immediate family, I also have just a few of extended family -- DH's parents' wedding pic, my mother's college portrait, and, um, not by design, but they happen to be the Dead Relatives. But I guess that's how the extended family gets into my photo gallery. I also have a couple of pictures of friends. I'm not doing the kids' school pics. For some reason, I just don't usually display them. They just seem less interesting than our non-professional pics!

Dian, Thanks for posting your photo. Are those frames from PB?

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I know I shouldn't feel obligated to display anyone's photo but I don't feel right to use people from my side of the family and forget DH's equivalents on his side, you know? Even if we're not as close to that person. I'll have to try and limit myself or I could go way overboard. I can't seem to handle too much visual stuff in the house even though I love photos with layered looks and more is more.

I think for now, I'll start with the shelves. The other side of the hall, when I start adding photos eventually, I should keep that arrangement loose so I can add when needed. I'm not sure how the "build over time" will go with me because I want everything done now. I guess I could have x amount of frames and make myself pick and choose.

I much prefer candid shots so I'm sure that's what the majority of the pictures will be. I can't decide if I want to use black and white with white mats or sepia with cream mats. I don't think I want to mix the two. Decisions, decisions.

So the photos would stay nicer longer if I ordered them from an online photo company? The problem I found with some of those places is, some of the photos couldn't be blow up to the size I want and I'm not talking huge pictures either. A couple I wanted to make 5x7 I got a warning saying it would be blurry. I ordered anyhow and, of course, it was blurry. Perhaps it's just my cheap camera and a better one would fix that? I'd like to buy a new one in the near future anyhow.

We put a dense flock of family pictures on a short hall wall in my parents new home. Including a frame around "Uncle Therm", the thermostat.

Pictures range from great grandparents to grandchildren.

One day my dad found out how useful it was to have that wall. My mom has alzheimers. Mostly she's doing really well, but one day early this year she got really confused about where she should be. He took her to the wall and when she saw herself in all those pictures, from her childhood to very recent she calmed down and realized she was where she should be.

I throw them all up and then some. I'm not big on school photos and typically keep them in a photo album. There are tons of pics of my kids on the walls though of all ages. I like a walk down history lane! I have no order or rhyme or reason to where they go on my gallery walls. I think that it actually keeps the eye moving. You're always finding something new.

What I did tend to do though is minimize how many pictures are on the walls in the other areas of the house. It tends to start very minimal and as you progress into the room w/ the gallery walls each room has just a tad bit more pictures until bam you're in the room w/ the gallery walls.

In fact - I just realized that's the only room where there are family pics. The central hall has 4 pics that are all sepia tree pics in brown gallery frames and the LR off of that doesn't have any pics on the wall yet. And in there I plan only on using two 5x7 pics flanking the entertainment center. Will probably be barns or something rustic.

Euglossa - I love your post. What a wonderful point!

I have our pics,kids families,babies.I kind of cut in half his side I started with my mother his mother when young,Then his side is on one side,he had 8 brothers 1 sister,parents,2 brothers deceased now.My side.accross top my 3 kids graduation pics,Thier weddings,babies,now Im leaving those up and adding grandkids of now.I have a wall in living room from chair rail up.beautiful.Its history on the wall to visit when ever you want to bring back a memory or 2.I stayed with all one color frame then added a few tiny mirrors with silver trim,for accent

Before we painted our LR SW Blonde, I did a one wall galary of B&W/Sepia toned pics. Different sizes, all frames were pewter. I liked it, but when we painted, I was not going to put more holes back that I had just filled. I miss the photos, but not so much that I've done anything about it.

As for kids, DD's pics were usually displayed on a table top, etc. The gallery wall was really just B&W or Sepia.

I don't have a hall with an expanse of wall to do another gallery. I would love to see a pic of what you decide to hang.

"Uncle Therm"!

LOL.

The forum line of the week. And a great idea!

I debated for years about the same thing before finally deciding last year! I swear, it was the worst and hardest decorating dilemma I've ever had ;^D
I finally decided to have two galleries in our bedroom hallway. The main one would be pretty much just my very favorite candids of my immediate family (DH, DS,DD & Myself), 5x7", and 8x10" with a few 4x6"; all framed in the same frames and mats; all in color (I like them better). I started in the middle with a favorite family photo of us and worked out from there.
The second gallery is parents, grandparents and siblings with their families, group photos only, as I have many sibs.
A year later, I still really like them both a lot.
Lynn

My mom gave me three of those old 70's collage frames with the pics in them. Included cousins, grand & great grandparents, sibilings, and one had photos of my eldest as an infant. I also was given some photos with DH's extended family in group shots. I have portraits of my brothers family, my sisters family, my MIL as a child, and I made a collage frame with our neices & nephews. Some photos include our pets, others shots of us on vacation.

I painted or bought frames in black, for a cohesive look. Some photos are BW, others color, but they all are special.

I was a grinch mom...didn't buy the school photos, except for the 5x7 & smaller. Primarily because the photos always looked terrible! So I didn't display them. Instead, I'd take all the kids to the photostudio at Walmart or Sears and get their photos their. They didn't seem to mind.

Now I'm doing scrapbooks, but I still frame an occasional photo that makes me happy.

I am in the process of collecting pics and framing them for a gallery wall in our FR. I realized I didn't have very many pics and I was inspired by a PB gallery wall in one of their catalogs. I have a very recent (oct.) pic of my kids that I blew up to 11x14 and it took off from there! I then scanned and increased in size favorite pics of each of them when they were small in 5x7 frames. My mother had given easch of them a sterling silver fork and spoon set when they were born, so I placed all of them in one shadow box. Joining my wall, is a pencil sketch someone did of my mother back in the early 70's and a pencil drawing of a dog my dad did when he was seventeen. I also have two small silhouette portraits of all four kids together. So, it is an assortment of meaningful pics, but they are all either black and white or sepia, all in black frames with white mats. I do have pics of both mine and my DH's grandparent's wedding pics in frames on a table and a great grandparent pic of my DH's. Fun to have for us and for our kids to see their heritage!

Wow! There are some great ideas here. I would love it if some of you would also post pictures. I am trying to do something in our family room. I bought a ton of frames, all different sizes but the same color/style. Now I have cold feet, I'm so afraid it's not going to work that I haven't done anything for months!

I'm getting pretty interested in the gallery wall. I have a wall in the bedroom that is calling out for something. Do you think B&W's would work in white frames or is black the way to go?

Your line about "who makes the cut" has really struck a nerve with me. Let me explain.

I have the strong opinion that you can do whatever you want with the photos (ie. "who makes the cut"). What you see and how you feel from the displays is all you. A display with a topic theme, color theme, or whatever theme is going to be fabulous as long as you go with your heart and your gut.

I had a terrible MIL (EX now!) who actually took the time to inventory WHO was displayed in photos, HOW they were displayed, and concocted her own storylines on why I elected to leave out certain people, include others, and have some more prominent than others. She had the gall to have "sit-down talks" with me several times about my choices in displayed photos.

She started sending photos with little post-it notes on where they would "look nice" & which one's I should change out.

It gnawed at her to no end that I changed nothing despite her passive-aggressive instructions.

I hope your family and/or friends are not the likes of the old hag I used to deal with. You should never, EVER have to explain the reasonings (themes, etc) of photos and why you display what you do.

Don't want to bring a downer to this & hope I'm not making you think harder into it. This just brought back some bad memories and it's really too bad it had to go that way.

End of therapeutic vent.
Gayle

I'm LOL at Gayle's therapeutic vent. I have a little different story about family photos but one I didn't see coming.

I have 2 daughters. I used to display family pictures on a sofa table that sat behind the sofa. I didn't analyze who was there, it was just kids, parents, grandparents, etc. Not an issue. THEN, one day I changed out a few and displayed one of my daughter with her long time boyfriend. Oh my, the girls made a big deal out of the fact that he MADE THE TABLE. So after that it was a private family joke. If a boyfriend showed up on the table it was a sign of acceptance. If he remained absent it mean mom (me) didn't exactly embrace this one. It was never a problem, just kind of funny.

They are older now and I'm in a new home where I have 2 family-photo shelves. One daughter is married, the other is divorced. So of course we had to clear the shelf of wedding/ex-husband pictures. Now there's another boyfriend on the scene who recently "made the shelf". It's been amusing.

With the colors you're now going with in your home, I think silver or gold frames would look better than the black and white format.

I have pictures of both sides of the family...our brothers, kids, parents, grandparents, an uncle. I have both black and white and color.

Here's the wall which I know you've seen before. That's me on the top left as a little girl holding a black ball. :)

Family and friends who have seen this wall a million times still stop and look.

Oops! Sorry I'm just now seeing these responses.

Retiredprof, I think it would look nice with white frames and black/white photos.

Gayle, Oh my! Ex MIL sounds like an interesting person! I'm not up against anything like that. Out of respect for DH I would want to include all his siblings if I included my own. I would feel bad if I had a whole wall of my family and didn't includes his. There is a line though and on the flip side, if someone tried to tell me who and what photos to put where that wouldn't sit well, lol.

Mimi, Aww.. My Mom has a table like that too! :)

Oakley, Do you have all your family on the wall? I believe I will do a color photo wall somewhere. Thanks for posting your photo!

PEsky - so glad to see that I am not the only one who doesn't buy the big package.

I also think white frames would look great!

I am in the process of doing the same thing up our stairway. I think I'll be doing the same as some of you. Having one area for a nice arrangement of sepia of the kids. And then a collage of miscellaneous pics of family up the stairway. I have one really neat pic of DH's Grandpa that I can see in a neat oval frame, but I don't have any other grandparents. And if I do grandparents, do I have to do parents? I feel your dilemma.
With all that being said, it is killing me hearing you decribe all these walls and not seeing them. Would love to see pics if you ever get time!!

My hallway is chopped up, but I hung the gallery in here. I loved this giant sign, so it set the inspiration for the gallery. It's all family, and it's all because at some point, two people fell in love!

This is the dark end of the hallway, I've hung the shelf with mirror to bring in some light.

This side is opposite some bookcases that also have individually framed photos in them.

Shee, most of our family is on the wall, but I have more pictures of my boys on a different wall, but not overkill. I don't put two pictures of the same person on the family wall though.

I think a mixture of frames, black & white, and color photos attract more attention to the wall. I don't tend to skim the pictures like I do the black and white format.