Our Gallery Wall

I promised I would blog the gallery wall I've recently been creating on the landing at the top of our stairs so here goes...! I've wanted a gallery wall for a long time and for that I can only blame Pinterest. When you're bored and in need of some interior inspiration, search 'gallery wall' on Pinterest and you'll immediately be graced with hundreds of beautifully arranged arrays of photos, prints and artwork in some of the most dreamy looking homes imaginable. Hashtag house porn. Unfortunately our landlord back in Greenwich was a bit fussy about things going up on the walls, so I knew that my project would have to wait. But now we finally own our beloved bricks and mortar we can finally call the shots. And so I got started on creating my own masterpiece...

First things first, I had to choose my photos. Like many people, I have hundreds if not thousands of photos stored on various laptops and my iphone so it took me a while to sift through them to find some I especially liked. Not only that, but ones that Rob liked too. It took quite a while! Initially I was going to create a gallery wall simply full of people we love, but then I realised I had printed out photos of some friends and not others... yawn. To be truthful I couldn't be bothered with any guilt or awkwardness and I couldn't possibly have included everyone I wanted to. So I decided to stick to just family instead. Rob and I are close to our families and both come from fairly large families with many cousins. We're also lucky that our parents get along so brilliantly and we have some really lovely photos of them together.

I knew I wanted to keep things simple and monochrome, I think black and white photos tend to look smarter and more classic. And with white walls throughout most of our house the black frames add some contrast. I purchased a load of black-rimmed frames from B&Q, IKEA and Tesco in various sizes and thickness, and then printed a collection of photos also in varying sizes, some portrait and some landscape. Side note: Prosecco always helps when carrying out projects like these.

Once framed, I laid the photos out on the floor {with the help of my good old dad!} and decided on an arrangement. I found it much easier to plan on the floor first, so I could work out the layout and choose the spaces and width between each photo. I've purposely made it look a bit random, I didn't want it looking too ordered. And then we hung the pictures on the wall, in the same arrangement. I adore the photo of my parents on their wedding day, it's one of my favourite photos of all time.

I've slowly been adding more photos over the past couple of months - only last week I put up the photo of Rob and I stood outside the Mandarin Oriental Hotel last Summer when we went to lunch at Heston Blumenthal's. And I gave Rob the large four-piece frame as a Valentine's gift, with photos of us and Rosie <3

But like my Dad said, "a gallery wall is never really quite finished..."

The gallery wall is now quite a feature, especially as you can see it from the hallway downstairs. It has completely transformed the upstairs landing, adding a sentimental, personal touch to an otherwise very boring wall-space. "You can acquire a house but you can't acquire a home... for a home is not made of bricks and mortar but of love and memories".


Lydia xxx