What catches your eye when you climb your stairs? If your answer is something in the vein of clutter, dust bunnies or scratches, it’s time to update this often-underutilized area of your home. Too often, homeowners neglect the walls that adorn their staircases, instead choosing to focus on their living rooms, hallways and the like. In doing so, though, they’re missing a key opportunity to make the most of the space they have, which they could easily convert into an attention-grabbing gallery wall.
So, just how can you go about creating a staircase gallery wall that displays some of your favorite people, places, pets or memories?
Recreate the Space on the Floor
Arguably the easiest way to determine how to best arrange your gallery wall involves measuring the space you plan to fill and then recreating it on the floor using painter’s tape. Next, arrange the photos you plan to hang within this space directly on the floor, taking care to leave between 6 and 10 inches along the bottom.
Arrange the Frames on the Floor
Once you have a replica of the space you plan to decorate laid out on your floor, play around with the frames you intend to hang, leaving each one roughly equidistant from the others. Try a few different looks until you land on an arrangement you especially like, and once you have one, snap a few photos of it to reference later on.
Arrange the Frames on the Wall
Next, using the pictures you took for reference, recreate the layout you made on the floor on your wall, affixing the frames with nails or other mechanisms intended to hold heavy pictures. You may, too, want to utilize putty when doing so to hold your frames firmly in place.
Keep in mind that you can change your featured images at any time – the easiest way to do so would be to swap out frames or photos for others that are the same size, but if need be, you can always start over again using your taped floor as a guideline. Maybe your ultimate goal is to feature family photos, or maybe you’re looking to showcase your children’s artwork, your own photography or what have you. Whatever your personal and stylistic preferences, use them to create something striking, personal and evocative in this area that might otherwise serve as wasted space.