#1 Best Way to Use Old Inherited Family Photos

After cleaning out my mom's house, I came home with a few boxes of old, old photo's that I had no clue what to do with. But I knew we should keep them, but where???

It all began with a couple of panoramic photos of my dad, made during World War II. I decided I'd enjoy framing these two photo's to display in our loft. Once I had those two photo's framed, a couple more of the old military photo's caught my eye. That's when my idea began to take shape. Since the mat was a standard white, I found a creative way to age the mat so that it worked with the vintage photos. You can see that tutorial here.

I could create a gallery wall! We had several treasured black and white photo's that hadn't seen the light of day in many years. So I began to search the house for these almost forgotten treasures. 

Once I had a good stack of old photo's, I then started looking for more frames. I wanted to frame some of the other old photo's that I had inherited from my mom. She had a couple of framed photos of The Ponds made prior to our ownership. These photo's were in color, so I just quickly copied them in black and white and placed the original photo's behind the copies for safe keeping.

Because I wanted a consistent feel for my gallery wall, I began to paint some of the old frames black. About this time, I was wishing I'd saved some of the frames that we had donated. I also had a few metal frames and a couple of mirrors that I chose to use for a little creative interest. Keep in mind, I couldn't go out and buy frames or mats. With the exception of the panoramic frames, everything I used to create my gallery wall was something I had on hand. Although this limited what I could do, it also made for a more unique wall.

I now had a collection of re-purposed frames, old photo's and some other interesting pieces of family history I discovered along the way.By removing the easels from the back of the frames and adding some hangers, I was able to re-purpose many old frames. Check out how to hang pictures without ever making a mistake here.

NOW WHERE DO I HANG MY GALLERY?

Because we are limited in wall space, the loft powder room is where I decided to display my gallery wall.

What do you think? I feel that once our guest start to visit again, more than one will become lost in the history of this wall. Look for my future post with step by step instructions for hanging a gallery wall without making any mistakes. For more details and more photo's visit my blog here. Thank you for stopping by. Hopefully, you enjoyed seeing some of my families history and that you'll be inspired to use your old family photo's in more creative ways. We are certainly enjoying seeing these treasures on a regular basis. Please feel free to ask any questions and all comments are welcome. Rachel