The featured photo is a balanced picture frame wall, which is a nice accent. However, we sometimes find it a bit overwhelming when there are so many picture frames around the home. We love framing our photos of friends or favorite moments and scattering them around the house. It is hard to distinguish what photos get framed and which ones take a back seat and end up in the photo album instead.
We have friends whose homes showcase every moment of their lives in photos in every room, including the half bathroom. Maybe you disagree, but we find it awkward to have a photo of “Mary and Joe” staring at us when we would really like to have a moment of privacy in the bathroom. On the other hand, we are puzzled when we are welcomed into someone’s personal domain and there is not a single display of photos - no family photos, friend photos, nothing.
We personally prefer a balance to the quantity of photos displayed in the home. We put together a list of suggestions that we find helpful.
Suggestions for a Balanced Display of Photos:
- Rotate Photos: Ever so often we rotate the framed photographs, putting some of the displayed frames away while taking out new pictures.
- Purchase a digital picture frame: Recently we bought a digital picture frame for a good friend of ours who has a passion for photography. He loved the idea of easily uploading the pictures and its ability to hold many different photos.
- Display photos on your computer screen saver: We sometimes change our computer desktop image to a personal photo. However, it is also fun to create a slideshow of images to use with your screen saver.
- Display a photo album on the coffee table: With the plethora of digital cameras taking over electronic store shelves that previously stocked traditional 35mm cameras, some of us have stopped purchasing photo albums. I remember as a child staying up late to look at my mother's photo albums of old family pictures. The digital era is very convenient, but there still is something to be said about physical photo albums.
- Share your photos on Flickr: When we have a fun weekend out at a party or the beach, we want to share our photos with friends or frame the pictures. Flickr is a great option for sharing photos with friends and storing them for personal viewing.
Last fall, we polled our readers to find out how they were storing or displaying their photos. Find out what others are implementing in their own homes.
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I feel personal photos should not be displayed in the "public" areas of the home. I have a family member who has slathered photos of her wedding, her children, her cat all over every inch of space in her home. It is overwhelming. The refrigerator is loaded with magnetized pictures and her home looks cluttered as a result.
Not for me, I prefer having a few nice pieces to rest the eyes on and enjoy them for what they are then an overlap of random fill ins just to fill a wall up space.
No photos on display in my house. (Well, one of my parents' wedding picture...)
I'm not very social (as in going to events where photos are typically taken) and I truly hate having a camera aimed at me, so I usually prevent it. So I have no stockpile to frame. (My partner feels the same.) I find the idea of tons of personal photos everywhere horribly cluttered, and never feel comfortable in homes where that happens. But if it makes you happy, you should go for it.
I love personal pictures, but I agree about a balance. I like a few pictures on the fridge held with magnets, the odd framed picture or bare snapshot mixed in with the other objects and books on our bookshelves, and a framed shot here and there in unobtrusive corners of tables or desks. That sounds like a lot more pictures than we really have.
I do like a large wall display of framed art and objects with photographs mixed in, but I haven't tried to create such a wall myself yet.
The photos shown are not personal, which makes them just another form of art arranged on a wall. And if the person whose space it is took them, it is both personal and art - in much the same way that any momentos or objects with a personal history are.
The problem with some/most digital picture frames is that they start at the same place over and over and over again. If you are thinking of buying one, check to see if this is true of the model you're considering.
I like personal pictures as well, and also enjoy looking at the one's in other people's homes :). I have baby pictures of each kiddo up in the hallway, same frames.
This post gave me an idea for my blank dining room wall though. I think I may do a collage of outdoor shots of the kids and our framed leaves we've collected.
Also, I personally don't like either of the rooms pictured above, way over done for me anyway.
Does anyone else cringe when people use to term cluttered to describe something that's not minimalist?
I like the top example, but I'm not so big on having ditsy little snapshots in cute frames on every flat surface.
A house without a display of personal photos doesn't bother me at all. I don't need to see a timeline of someone's life.
And while this site couldn't survive without Flickr, I cringe.
I have two digital picture frames, and while I love the photos they scroll through, I haven't figured out a way to love the frame. Has anyone figured out how to make them pretty and fit into a pretty vignette?
I have no problem with a few personal photos in the home. We have a wall of framed family photos in the "family" room and also a wall of generational photos in the hallway.
The problem I have with personal photos is when people have them all over the house! For example, I don't think family photos belong in the formal dining room or worse, the bathroom. I have a friend with personal photos all over the house and it is a little weird. I find my eye wandering to look at them the whole time I am there. It's distracting and feels like people are looking at me all the time.
Now if you have a distaste for many frames on the wall personal or otherwise, check out the current issue of Ready Made. There is a modern house featured with tons of art on the walls. I think it's fabulous.
I truly do not understand how anyone can have a "problem" with people having personal photos in their house, anywhere. They "don't belong" in the formal dining room? "I don't need to see a timeline of someone's life"? Where does this bitter attitude come from? I mean, if every inch of free space is covered with photos from floor to ceiling I can see a clutter factor (with any framed image), but so what if there's just a lot of them? People surrounding themselves with images of the people and places they love is probably the least problematic thing I could imagine.
My attitude - if you really love it, you should look at it as often as possible. Only display those photos that you really love, and then surround yourself with things that make you happy.
Anyone who visits your home is already being exposed to what makes you happy (the colors you like, the furniture style you favor); this is just another aspect of it.
I generally like seeing personal photos in homes. It makes me feel like people live there, and I like hearing stories behind them. That said, like so many others, pictures covering ever flat surface or wall is cluttered and distracting, and while I wouldn't tell anyone their personal photos "don't belong somewhere," I do agree I'd be uncomfortable with a picture watching me while I use the ladies' room. I think I have one photo on an end table in my living room, and it's me with my family when I graduated from college. It isn't very pretty, but considering I am the second person after my mom to get a college degree inmy entire family, I love it a lot.
Huh. We don't have any photos of ourselves in our house. I've never felt it necessary. My husband and I are both artists, and we have our artwork and artsy photographs up here and there, along with some vintage prints we've picked up. I'm also planning on creating a display of some antique family portraits & documents I recently inherited. I feel that says a lot more about "us" than some doofy pic from our wedding or whatevs.
OTOH, everybody else out here in the 'burbs seems to frame every single snapshot EVAR and slap it up on their walls. Which is nice for them, and interesting to look at. But it would make me crazy in my house.
karmaonion--I'm not bitter, I'm expressing a preference in design and decor. Some people enjoy seeing every school photo from nursery school through PhD. I''m not that enchanted.
I like seeing personal photos! Maybe not on every wall, but a house without them would seem very cold to me. I have a full happy life and it brings me joy to see some of our adventures and close friends and family on our walls. I'd rather visit or live in a warm, loved "cluttered" homey-home than a minimalist one any day, but that's just my personal preference. I think our home strikes a decent balance - snapshots arranged on one wall downstairs, but the rest in the upstairs parts of the house. Excluding the bathrooms ;)
I think the best thing is a beautiful, artistic photo of someone who means something to me. I don't care for formal snapshots, but if someone else wants to I think it's fine. For me, it has always seemed stranger to have beautiful, artistic photos of strangers or models up in your house. I do prefer to mix photos and art but the most important thing to me is that I love the piece. I've never gone to someone's place and been, like, "Oh, wow, that person really let their home suffer by including snapshots of them with their baby/mom/vacation."
I like to see family photos up on the walls, just not on surfaces.
I dislike going to someones house and NOT seeing their photos and personal pieces. It's odd, like they have no past....
I LOVE Art collage walls like the ones pictured. I've been wanting to do it for years and just haven't invested in the frames yet.