Our House: Hallway

January 24, 2011 in Personal Projects • Home

Last we left off, I'd just shown you the entry, with my favorite wallpaper of all time. Right around the corner is the hallway, which leads to the living room, kitchen and office. Not too much to see here except a dirty floor and white walls, right?

Before I show you the after photos, I have to warn you that I am not one of those people who thinks displaying photos of themselves is weird. I don't think it's strange to hang your wedding photos, and I don't think it's a shrine to ourselves. Those are our memories, and looking at them brings me joy every day. Now, that being said, here is our hallway:

The same wall, from the other direction (kitchen on the left, living room on the right). These are mostly our engagement and wedding photos (where else will you have such gorgeous photos of your parents dancing, I ask you?!), plus the newborn photos of Chuck. Mixed in are a few pictures of our pets and our travels.

The opposite wall:

The section furthest from the camera is our Moo Card photo collage from our roadtrip, which I blogged about a couple of years ago. The section closest to the camera has a few more wedding/engagement/newborn photos, plus a series of iphone photos of Charlie after she was first born. The two square shadow boxes have trinkets from our engagement and wedding; I'm not much for keeping "stuff" around, so this was a fun way to display a few items without having them clutter up our living space.

So yeah - needless to say, I have no problem displaying photos of ourselves. We had a kickass wedding photographer, and I don't open our wedding album. I love being able to enjoy these photos on a daily basis.

What's your opinion? Do you display your wedding photos, or do you feel weird about it, like you'd be creating a shrine to yourselves?

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A good wedding photographer would ideally be someone with at least a little experience of photo journalism. A photographer who has covered public events as an anonymous photo journalist will have a better understanding of the nuances that go into reportage wedding photography.
Posted by Photography lighting on 2011-05-11 04:12:58 @Shawna - I was just thinking that the other day! We have three photos from Charlie's newborn photo shoot on the wall, and she's clearly not a newborn anymore! But I also feel like we paid a lot of $$$ for the photos so I don't want to take them down (haha). Maybe updating should be a "I'm sick of these photos" thing instead of a "these photos are old" thing? @aimee - thank you so much! That really means a lot to me! And YOUR baby is beautiful! Holy moly! @LA - really? Why is that? I love seeing my parents' wedding photos, and they've been married 35 years. @Izumi - what a thoughtful gift from your mom!! I have been meaning to put more photos in frames on shelves and things...it's hard to remember to get things printed! I'm also always getting new favorite photos of Charlie, so it's hard to choose. :)
Posted by Sara • Stinkerpants on 2011-02-28 00:12:28 My husband and I have one photo from our wedding matted, framed and hung on our living room wall. Other pictures of our family and 2 girls are scattered around the house on book shelves. I do want to hang more up... my Mom has made 2 large heart-shaped collages of pictures. One is of family friends and one is of our family from the beginning. It's so much fun to look at the pictures and see the old ones when we were just kids.
Posted by Izumi on 2011-02-15 17:03:28 I've always felt personally that you shouldn't hang wedding photos after the first year. Pick one beautiful wedding photo and hang it with the rest of your life photos. These are your moments and they should be displayed. I love the way you hung them.
Posted by LA on 2011-01-30 21:50:01 What a great idea- the shadowboxes for wedding items! I'm stealing this for sure. Especially for our save the date that you did for us- it's one of my favorite things from the wedding! Your baby is beautiful! :)Aimee
Posted by Aimee on 2011-01-28 20:29:25 I love having pictures in my house of my family! It makes me smile too. And I get to look at them all the time and remember all the fun memories! I love how you decorated the hall! It looks fabulous!
Posted by D on 2011-01-25 00:53:52 I loooove to check out photos when I visit friends and I know everyone checks out our hallway "gallery." The only somewhat weird bit is that I'm not great at updating photos. For instant, my nieces are now 11 and 14, but by the photos on our mantel, you'd think they were still two and five. Ah well.
Posted by Shawna on 2011-01-24 22:48:32 @Zoe: in a book you would rarely open!
Posted by Sara • Stinkerpants on 2011-01-24 16:29:08 On Black Friday, Michaels was having this great sale on collage frames (one with 21 openings!), so we bought a bunch. So far only the 21-opening frame has been filled and hung on the wall, and we've been wondering is it narcissistic to have so many pictures of ourselves up. But like you said, it's our home and our memories, where else would they go??? :P
Posted by Zoe on 2011-01-24 16:03:00 @Stephanie: Sounds like our hallways have a lot in common. ;) @Stef: I personally don't think you're a narcissist. But obviously I might be a bit biased. ;) I think it's a lot nicer to have beautiful photos over your fireplace than a TV (which is what we have over ours, haha). Much more friendly. @JoyJoy: OMG, really?! When people come to our house, they always look at the photos. I am surprised that people made comments about it! It's not like they're hanging over the toilet!
Posted by Sara • Stinkerpants on 2011-01-24 16:01:14 I never thought of it as weird until I did it in my own home. For our wedding we had two large matted engagement photos for people to sign (the mat) with greetings, etc. After we bought our house, I hung them in our hallway thinking nothing of the "weirdness". Every so often we get comments from guests who say it's weird or creepy for them to see our faces whenever they use the restroom (the frames are hung across the hall from the guest bathroom door since that's where they fit). I'm actually planning to move them to a less trafficked section of the hallway because of those comments. :-/ I don't think it's weird, and I actually enjoy seeing peoples' treasured memories on display when I visit others' homes. Apparently, though, I know a lot of people who do think it's weird.
Posted by joyjoy on 2011-01-24 15:47:20 I had never heard of this "it's weird to hang photos of yourself" thing until after I forked over a ton of money to beautifully frame three giant wedding photos to hang over our mantel. HA! Now, I always wonder if people think I'm a major narcissist. But whatev. When we have kids, I'll replace the photos with family and/or baby pics. But like you said, they're your memories, you had a kickass photographer...I honestly don't understand why people DON'T hang photos of themselves in their home. I love to look at pics of my husband and I early in our relationship, for example, and I smile and think "Who would've thought then we'd be here today?!" It's a good feeling. I'm all for it. Your hallway looks great!
Posted by StefanieK on 2011-01-24 14:36:25 Our hallway looks very similar - all pro pics in black frames and the pics are, basically, just of us! Haiden is making his way on to the wall now as well. :)
Posted by Stephanie Michele on 2011-01-24 14:05:07

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