Photo gallery wall - where to start?

[Littlemiss74]

Has anyone done a photo gallery wall and how did you do it?
I have been sorting out all our photos and have some really lovely professional ones from over the years. It seems a shame to keep them in a box so thinking of doing a little gallery wall on the stairs.

I am very uncreative and don’t know where to start. What type of frames to use, all matching or all different, sizes, positions etc..
I’ve seen online you can buy sets of frames so thinking that might make things alot easier.

Any tips please?

@Littlemiss74 Pinterest is the best way to start. There are thousands of examples of ‘photo gallery walls’ and that will help you decide if you prefer matching frames/images or a more eclectic mix. I’ve done both; my staircase has black and white photos, all the pictures and frames are the same size (made by a local framer) with equal spaces between them. My lounge is much more of a mix with different sizes, different frames, more randomly hung but are all similar colours.

We have one in the hall. I used wooden frames. They're not all the same but they're roughly the same shade. We did it by marking out a band across the wall and ensuring that the top and bottom pictures were aligned. Sometimes they are three deep and sometimes four but the top and bottom line is the same, if you see what I mean.

One thing I would add is that DH and I nearly came to blows trying to do it together. He wanted to work it all out mathematically and we did the first two columns like that before I nearly throttled him. It took us hours! After he'd disappeared in a sulk I did the rest by eye and it looks fine :D

I used mismatched frames, but similar colours - black, white, grey, silver - and hung them randomly. If you try and line them up, you will go nuts.