Stairway Gallery Wall

I grew up in a ranch-style home so all this stairmastering is new to me. Plus, I wasn't sure how to go about decorating the towering, vacant stairway wall. I found a beautiful tapestry from Anthrologie but it was a little too modern and bold. And then whilst scrolling through Pinterest, I saw this and my heart skipped a beat:

Source: Photographer Donna Griffith

Yaaas! Black and white gallery perfection. Our staircase is more curved but I really wanted to try something similar. 

After finding perfect ones for my wallpaper art project, IKEA has become my first stop for frames. And yet again, they did not disappoint. The HOVSTA Frame was the perfect size and I love the slightly elongated matting. The glass is actually plastic, which I prefer in case one (of all) of them come tumbling down.

Based off of my rough measurements, I decided to do 9 of these with 16x20 photos. Warning: 16x20s are technically posters, which means they can be pricey to print. I waited until Walgreens Photo had a 50% off code and then ordered them.

I went with a "our favorite places" theme. Some are from where we grew up, our engagement, wedding, honeymoon in Italy, etc. So as we go up and down and up and down the stairs, we're reminded of our milestones. 

And then I left my husband and brother-in-law to do the hard part, which required ladders and scaffolding and potentially hazardous things I didn't want to witness. 

And voila! I could not, for the life of me, get photos without the chandelier glare, and it's much too dark without lights because there's zero natural light in this area of the house. So apologies!

They're not 100% perfectly spaced because of how the back of the frames lay, which was driving the guys nuts, but meh I love it! I was so worried it would look strange since we started them a little higher so they wouldn't get bumped going up the stairs, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. And we can change the photos as we embark on more adventures.