Ever since we bought our first house almost six years ago, we wanted to create a family gallery wall. The wall never materialized at our first house, but it was at the top of our to-do list when we moved into our new house at the end of August.

This gallery wall is in our downstairs hallway, right in the center of our house. We're still on the hunt for photos and frames for it, but I wanted to share it as a work in progress. In time, we plan to add two more gallery walls going up our staircase and in our upstairs hallway.

Jonathan's side of the family isn't well represented on the wall, but we'll have some of his family photos (and the stories that go along with them) to hang and share very soon. Once we have those photos, I'll take down most of the photos that are less than 30 years old. While the photos are definitely the stars of the show, the frames are pretty fun as well. Some of them have been in my family for decades, and others came from the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore for a dollar or two each. I think the mix of intricate and plain strikes a nice balance. There are also some empty spaces for additional frames because I like the idea of adding to the wall as we find interesting frames and/or locate photos that are special to us.

Some of the photos shown here will be familiar to you. Several of them were scanned from film slides and printed by me. We love having these precious memories (and people) around us everyday.