apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

perhaps designed to hide the dust?!

I don't like this.

Yeah, it's kind of overkill. I don't think you really honor and showcase your loved ones when you something like this...plus, it'd be a pain to dust! (Not that they probably do their own dusting...)

When my partner and moved far away from our families, we decided it would be comforting to have some of their pictures in the house.
We bought a bunch of mismatched old frames from second-hand stores and painted them all flat black.
We arranged these in the long hall leading to our bedrooms. It is way better looking than the jumble of frames and pictures in post.

We are planning a move from 3,000 sq ft to under 850. We have about a year so no hurry but I've already started - been taking family photographs out of their frames and realized that they are scattered all over. On top of the piano (upright), on hallway walls, really on just about ever surface imaginable. I just yesterday removed 2 small frames of my husband's nieces' DOGS! yes we had been living with 2 small ugly framed pictures of dogs (they were gifts). Get this - the dogs have since gone on to dog heaven, no less. Every school picture anybody ever sent, they sent in frames and we obligingly displayed.

I'm hardening my heart and every single ugly cheap wooden framed picture of relatives dogs :) But really, if we have the living breathing human to love, what good are the framed pics? I'll keep and display few precious ones. maybe one of each kid, one of the parents, one of the antique grandparents. Oh wait - even that's too many!

dilemma for sure.

I'm not a fan of pictures of people right now. Too many funerals as a kid, and I have a hard time viewing them in a non-wake context.

How's that for morbid? Working on it, though.

I use the Antix multiframe in white. It provides a clean, cohesive display, and since it used magnetic surrounds to hold the photos in place, I can easily swap them out.

http://www.conranusa.com/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=13864&cid=Frames&language=en-US

This is a sign that the household has far too much clutter! I would put away almost all of the photos and then display a small portion of them on a rotating basis. In my opinion, their ideal placement is a side table or bookshelf.

I just gotta say that I am often amazed at the way people crowd musical instruments into a home and then camouflage them in this way. Either someone owns a piano in order to play it or they wish to admire it for purely aesthetic reasons. In any case, they should clear off the junk so that they could admire the piece and then call a piano tuner so that someone, probably a guest can play it every so often. These instruments are more than furniture.

So I guess they never open the piano for cleaning or say, playing? And what a great way to hide an extremely beautiful (and no doubt extremely expensive) instrument.
Call me callous, but school portraits look horrible and shall forever be forbidden from my place of residence, even if they're of my own kids.

I agree; this looks terrible. For each kid, I'd have one special baby picture and/or a current picture.

Since I have six (soon to be seven) fast-growing nieces and nephews, my boyfriend and I decided to ditch the frames. Instead, we're going to run clothesline along the wall between living and bedroom and use clothespins to hang digital pictures printed from our home printer. Cheap and easy to update, since we're constantly getting new pictures.

I have him half-convinced to let me caption the pictures too. http://i25.tinypic.com/vpcmbq.jpg

In my office, in my bedroom, on the refrigerator, and in my wallet. And none in any great quantity.

I just noticed that it's Cindy and John McCain's house. And, if you click through the slideshow, there are photos on nearly every horizontal surface.

I have never liked and do not understand the family portrait thing -- especially the "wall o'portraits" treatment. Call me a crab if you like, but the photos are usually boring and stilted. I keep albums for family photos and prefer to enhance my walls with visuals that have nothing to do with my gene-pool.

I do have two snapshots on my fridge that will go into an album after I'm done looking at them for a few months. Some people have a perfectly pristine fridges -- mine is part of my landing strip (theatre tix, a calendar, a couple of reciepts, and snapshots).

I bought the cheapo frames from IKEA. I think they're RAM? They're 3 for $1.99. I stained them a darker color to match our decor and glued sets of four into pinwheel shapes. To those I added magnets and now the pinwheels are on the front of our fridge. I try to only use snapshots and no formal portraits. But with 13 nieces and nephews, it's hard enough to just stay current!

The only kind of clever thing there is in that house tour is what looks like is probably a great-great-grandchild's drawing of a face near some kind of tribal mask. That kind of works, visually.

The pictures on the wall are hung in such a mess that AD probably wanted to rearrange them in Photoshop. I can just see the expressions on the faces of the poor production assistants wringing their hands during that shoot.

I have those cheap acrylic "frameless" frames with magnets on the back. I've printed out pictures of friends and family in black and white, and these are covering the front of the fridge in an edge-touching-edge mosaic of faces. I like it - I like having images of the people I love around me, particularly those who are gone now. All the pictures are casual snapshots.

Yet another reason NOT to vote for this lunatic.

Carla, don't start...

You're a fool if you think everyone agrees with you.

Weasel Dearest is Mr. Dangerous

Doug, How does that Antix frame work? Is there a metal backing that all the little frames stick to? What a great idea.

Does anyone else have ideas for placing a bunch of unframed photos without using one of Martha's ribbon boards?

I like sliding nice snapshots into the frames of more formal art, but you can only go so far with that.

family photos are best kept to more personal rooms, bedroom etc...

Filene's Basement has great deals on frames...nice silver frames run around $5.

hiding a beautiful piano with waay too many photos.. seriously.

Yeah Carla, Piano top arrangements play a big role in people's political opinions. Shouldnt you be yelling, holding a banner and protesting somewhere?

My grandmother had a wall in her bedroom of little and big picture frames of everyone in the family at various ages. It was really interesting to look at. It looked like something she started when she was young and never took any down, just kept adding and making the "collage" bigger.

I agree that these are a jumble, but I am about to get to work on a nice wall gallery for my apartment. It's all well and good to say hanging family pictures is tacky, but if you have children, and want to emphasize and honor the importance of extended family, especially those living far away, I think that that connection trumps any notions of purity in design. After all, a home is a living space, not a gallery to impress people with your "style"

McCain's not my candidate, but after living in the Hanoi Hilton, the guy's entitled to decorate any way he wants.

Am I an unsentimental troll for not displaying family photos?

My family has always had one wall in the house dedicated to family pictures. Most of these photographs date back to the depression when most of my family moved to Canada from Ukraine, so they're not your typical WalMart photo studio portraits.

I've continued this tradtion in my own home, but I've started small with only a couple photos of my parents from their "glory days" in the 60's. Most of the photos my dad processed himself, so they have a lot more sentimental value than just a kodak snapshop processed at the local photomat.

I love having family pictures up, but there definitely has to be some filtering when choosing the right photos.

ha carla. god forbid anyone should crack a joke or mention politics in the AT bubble ("Oh no, but AT is a design site!!"). Even after NOT living in the Hanoi Hilton anyone is entitled to decorate anyway they wish, so that one is pointless.

Meanwhile a digital frame is one solution.

I HATE tables covered in photos - I have exactly three photo frames on usable table-like surfaces - one in the living room, and two on my dresser. Partly this is because I live somewhere so small, so every inch of workspace is precious. But also, I find it a little oppressive.

I display most of my family photos in the bathroom. They cover all of the walls, and, since I live alone, I shower with the door open, so the steam is not an issue. For those who cohabitate, it's a great solution for a powder room - hallways are also a good spot for this.

I like a salon-style hanging - it's easy to add to/take away from without anything looking incomplete. I mix new vacation shots and all the cousin portraits from the various weddings over the last few years (we're all in our 20's and 30's now, so it's been a marathon) with old family portraits - I have a baby picture of my mom right next to one of me. It's awesome!

I've only got a few pictures out, but they're all black & white in black frames, with the exception of my great grandparents' last portrait together before Gramps died. It's old faded sepia and I found a great bronze frame for it. I keep them on side tables, my desk, and the ledge above my bed. Mental count- 5 framed pictures. If I want to see family, I can look on my computer. I'm always getting e-mails with pictures of my cousins' latest doings.

I keep a few out - mostly vacation photos - on the credenza in my hallway.

That piano looks just ridiculous.

I'm in the process of putting together my favorite pictures of family and friends (both mine and my fiance's) in nice frames so that I can fill my "hallway" (small space leading from kitchen to bedroom, with the bathroom just off to one side and the linen closet to the other) walls with them, and other meaningful (usually 'given') framed items. An "homage" if you will.

I like the idea of having these things, that can otherwise look cheesy, or clutter up a room, in the transition from public to private areas, such as this hallway. And, having them all on the walls, as opposed to surfaces, makes dusting easier.

My mom (though with very traditional tastes) always kept very few pictures of us kids in the house. It wasn't very practical with us running around, for one, and two, she didn't have the room! Most of my childhood, she kept a baby picture with a birth announcement for each child next to a wedding photo. I loved looking at that wall as a kid.

Now, she has more photos on her kitchen wall, but she has weddings, graduations, and babies to show off. And it's well done and fun to look at every time I visit.

Even though she appears bereft of good taste, I am positive Mrs. John McCain has an actual name of her own.

I like really old black and white family photos in black frames with white mats. They look a bit more like vintage art displayed this way. Grouped together on a wall in frames of different sizes, these photos look really cool. I also mix in other black and white non-family photos to make it more interesting. Living with all those photos on the McCain piano would make me absolutely crazy!

Ugh, as a pianist I'm not a fan of cluttering up the top of a piano like this. I print digital photos in black and white and rotate them through several frames on a couple of ledges. If I framed every photo someone's given me, I wouldn't have any wall or shelf space left.

Two things...

As AmberM says, a piano is not a display space. It can ruin the sound of the instrument.

Big family portrait galleries always seem to say "look we're really a great family, really, we are. I promise." Somehow they seem to indicate just the opposite to me. They say we have big secrets and everyone hates everyone else or we don't own any art. That being said I love candid shots in small numbers.

I have always thought that family photos should be kept in the private rooms of the house. Back bedroom hallways are a great place for a collection. Since a lot of us live in only one room it's hard not to put photos out but not all over the place. Pick one spot and put 3-4 nice framed pictures. Then they can be changed out every month or so.

Yep, that AD was pretty offensive. That house is madness.

With all this talk about clusters of family photos, I'd just like to make a nod towards the big blown-up family portraits (circa 1992, naturally) with the faux "painting" finish... hmmm. Was recently in a friend's childhood home and there was one of the family surrounded by smaller portraits of each family member. ie, there was one of the dad, solo.

The photo clutter isn't even half of what's wrong with that house. I do like the framed children's paintings, but overall it's just too much.

Can't rich people pay others to have good taste for them?

I am in the 'no family photo' camp. I didn't grow up with family photos around, and I think it best to keep them in an album (or on a hard drive).

I will admit to having a single photo of an important person that died many years ago. It is incorporated into a memorial I made, and I feel a sense of obligation to his memory to always have it out in plain view.

I love good design and I'm a also pianist and this flat-out pisses me off.

Family photos usually make really bad artwork. The only family I have on the wall is a self portrait my sister did.

Actually, the more I think of it, some music-preservationist/antique-preservationist group could probably do sort of a vigilanted "rescue/intervention" to save that piano from the kind of neglect that these folks are perpetrating on it. I don't play piano very often anymore, but part of me is kind of offended by this picture in that way.

I'm sorry, I didn't read the article so I didn't realize this was Senator McCain's house. Which one of the seven is it?

MY FIANCE HAS SOLD HIS HOUSE AND IS MOVING INTO MY CONDO AS WE SEARCH FOR A NEW HOUSE. HE HAS A GIGANTIC FRAMED PICTURE OF HIMSELF AND HIS 2 GROWN DAUGHTERS. I HATE IT. HE WANTS TO HANG IT IN WHAT WILL BE THE 'HOME OFFICE'. I WILL NOT GO IN THAT ROOM AGAIN. SO MUCH FOR BECOMING A COUPLE. I ALSO HAVE 2 GROWN CHILDREN AND HAVE NO NEED FOR SUCH A DISPLAY. ANY ADVICE

Three thoughts:

1) I have a dear friend with an overbearing roommate. O.R. has a painted portrait of herself in her youth over the mantle. Weird.

2) I hung a "inspiration wire" (awful phrase) over my husband's dresser and hung all his random photos from it. But that was more to ween him off his bulletin board. Or rather, his dusty stack of pictures that he never hung up after he moved in and his bulletin board didn't.

3) This isn't how John McCain lives. It is a carefully staged setting to show the American people that he is just like us.

Seriously, though, (and I'm not trying to get political even though I think the man is actually insane, a thing I didn't think until the debates started) has anyone tried to argue at any point in this race that the McCains have great taste? Not really.

This is really unattractive. If a person's home reflects their personality, this picture makes me think the homeowners are outdated and stuffy.

Joylee - Perhaps you can suggest that your fiancee hang the picture in a private area that only he uses, i.e. his office outside of the home...? If not, perhaps you can gift the portrait to one of his daughters. :)