How to Arrange Photos on a Two Story Staircase Wall

When buying your first home, you may not have all the pictures or artwork for your house. It could take you years or decades to find the right photos to display. Or, you may give up altogether and not put anything on your walls. The best time to arrange photos and artwork was when we got crown molding installed in our main living areas.

Jump to:

• Benefits of creating a picture frame theme wall
• What themes to use when arranging photos
• Two-Story Wall Reveal
• Tips for hanging picture frame collections: 
• Conclusion

I placed all the prints and artwork together, and surprisingly enough, we found a theme for each of the piles of artwork and pictures. With my parents passing and our collection of photographs, we had amassed many prints with a faith and family topic. Since we couldn't fit both of them on one wall, we decided to separate them on the two walls. Our two-story wall space gave us enough room to spread out the prints and allow some negative space and color of the wall to come through.

Benefits of creating a picture frame theme wall

First, let me explain the benefits of arranging your photos on the wall.

1. The artwork is off the floor and gives purpose to a wall.
2. It allows you to see all your favorite pieces in one place.
3. The collection gives you ideas on what other items you can add to the wall that you may have in another room.

Are you ready to take action? Decide the theme, and let's begin.

What themes to use when arranging photos

If you want to group your pictures by themes and don't have any idea what theme to use, below are examples of themes I used to arrange photos in my home.

A faith wall - this arrangement would include all your religious pieces.

A wedding wall - this collection would hold all the wedding photos of your ancestors over the years.

A family wall - An arrangement of all the family photos you collected over the years.

A flower wall - If you love pictures of flowers or nature, you can make a wall with all that artwork.

A reunion wall - this wall could hold all the pictures over the years from your family reunions.

Your favorite hobby - A collection of your favorite pieces of artwork you created yourself or a family member.

Extended family wall - A wall that shares family photos of members who are located in other countries.

Determining a theme for your wall will make it easier for you to decide what will go on the wall.

You may wonder why you created a theme. There are lots of benefits to doing this instead of slapping up any old artwork or picture frame on the wall.

Now that you decided on a theme for your wall gather all the framed pictures and artwork for that theme. Since the wall may be large, you can use sheets of paper cut out to the size of each print and tape them to the wall. This step is handy to see how all the photographs would lay out in the process. Visit my living room collection post to see a visual of this tip.

After you do this, now it is time to add the prints to the wall. Go one by one and remove the paper behind the wall, add the picture hook, and print.

Walla, you are finished! What do you think of your very own customized picture wall? Please share your results in the comments below.

Two-Story Wall Reveal

I mentioned I did this with my walls; the below images are how we created our collection of artwork and picture frames for our walls.

Here is my Faith wall.  It is the west wall of my staircase.  I found the cross at a discount store, and the word Faith came from another quote pack, Faith, Hope, Love, from a rub-on sticker for walls.

The photo above is what I call my family wall.  It's the east wall of my staircase.  We had large pictures of my parents and wanted to put all our other photos around them.  I love it!

Hanging the photos and prints took time. So, expect it to take a good day or so to do all of these steps. If you have a high wall, you may need a ladder and a helper to hand you the artwork. Our project took a total of 3 hours.

Tips for hanging picture frame collections: 

If you decide to gather your photos together, a common theme will emerge. Determine what that theme is and what wall will be able to hold the collection and go with it.  When I gathered all my prints together, I realized I liked the cherry and gold frames, relationship prints, colorful prints, and plates, as you can tell.

If you find that your frames do not work well together, grab spray paint and change the frame color to make it work better. There are several sets of frames you can buy.

Conclusion

Now, are you ready to take all those piles of pictures and artwork off the floor and display them in a place of honor? I hope this inspires you to create your very own customized collage wall of your favorite framed photos. Read more about the collage process below, and check out my other wall to get even more inspired. The capital titles below are from this blog.

4 Steps to Perfectly Decorated Walls

How to Arrange Pictures on a Wall

Arranging family photos

HOW TO MAKE A FABULOUS PHOTO WALL COLLAGE

ARRANGING PHOTOS ON WALLS TIPS

HOW TO INSTALL A DIY HOME PICTURE HANGING SYSTEM