Gallery Wall

So I told you a while back about the beautiful photos my friend Julie took.  We made canvas prints to give to my parents and In-Laws for Christmas.  The Christmas gifts were the main reason to get our pictures taken in the first place (My brother and family joined us so we could get all the grandchildren together) but the bonus was all the great family shots we got for ourselves.  We were way overdue for good family pictures!

There are even more, but I wanted to display all of these together in a gallery wall going up our stairs.  It was much harder then I thought it would be to find a grouping that looked good....and very stressful, I might add.
I started with the frames I already had, and painted them black. Then I bought a few more black frames from Walmart.  I started with the biggest frame in the center, then played around with some paper templates for the other frames.

Once I settled on this placement I decided it needed one more towards the top of the stairs.

That wall seriously needs a paint job. And that is why I used nails to hang the pictures rather then Command picture hanging strips. I was feeling pretty confident in my placement of the pictures and by using nails, we can leave the nails in when we paint and put everything right back where it was. But anyhoo,   after looking at this for a couple of weeks, that one bare spot was bugging me.

Problem solved!!  Only now I want to paint all the frames and the letter white ((sigh)).  That stairwell gets so dark as the day goes on.  I'm thinking of beefing up the molding along the stairs and want the frames to be a crisp white as well.  That can wait till spring. For now, I am thrilled with our beautiful photo's and gallery wall!