Family photo wall

I've wanted a collage/family photo wall for years and I'm so happy that I now have one! Check out this fabulousness:

1. Little husband as a baby, circa 1979/80
2. The only frame left to fill...
3. My family at Volcano National Park in Hawaii, 2008
4. Wedding photo, 2010
5. James and one of his nieces
6. James and his other niece
7. My dad (the youngest), aunts and uncle, circa 1957
8. Baby husband and his mom, circa 1981
9. Another of our favorite wedding photos, 2010
10. Baby me, circa 1988

To find the arrangement I wanted, I laid out all the frames on the floor before beginning anything. It took a few days of changing things around (Actually the idea started out being a mix of black and white photography/art and B/W family photos. Then it evolved into a combo of B/W and color family photos only).

I got this little tip from Young House Love - cut out newspaper in the sizes of the frames and tape them to the wall to help gauge where things should be positioned.

That helped to avoid putting too many holes in the wall, deciding a frame was in the wrong place, and having to make another hole. There was at least one or two of those, but instances were severely limited thanks to this handy dandy idea! Many of them I actually nailed right through the newspaper that was still on the wall, then just tore it away.

Here's what the wall looked like at first. You can see that most of the frames were empty and some were mismatched.

I thought about painting all the frames one color, but it turned out that I didn't mind the variation. I just wanted them to be a little more unified, so it was decided that they'd all be black, metallic or very dark brown.

This only required me to paint three of the lighter wood tone ones black. I just spray painted out back, over a box so I didn't get the grass. Easy peasy :)

I had the remaining photos printed by Walgreens and Shutterfly. I still have one more small one to get enlarged so it can go in frame 2. Here's how the wall looks today...

It's in the hallway between all the bedrooms and bathrooms. Here's the view from the living room...

I love how this turned out! I spent very little money on it because I'd been collecting the frames for a while - most were gifts and some were repurposed. The biggest expense was getting the larger images printed (The most expensive was image 9, around $12. Number 4 was included in our wedding photography package).