blank walls to beautiful halls

Last year, we moved back to California and into a fairly new home. Love the house, but I wasn't a huge fan of all the big, blank, white walls. Those of you living in newer construction will understand. Even if you're not renting (which we are), the expense and effort required to paint cathedral ceilinged walls can be enormous. We know we're here for 2+ years, and I can't paint these big, white walls. But surely I can do something to beautify them a bit. The first space I tackled was the hallway up the stairs.

Here's the space BEFORE: massive and bland with zero natural light. Yikes.

Using picture frames we already had from Ikea (click HERE for the large frames), I dressed up the staircase and added a little sentimental value to our home. Here's the AFTER:

The large frames contain two collages I put together on the Walmart photo site. When I uploaded some photos to print, an option came up to create a collage. So easy. The photo at the top of the stairs is a 12 x 12 inch print of a snapshot from my pregnancy. To keep the wall looking clean and uniform, I opted for black and white photos and large-scale frames.

We move every couple of years for my husband's work, so the collages are made up of pictures from each of the last two places we lived. I inscribed the mat on each frame with the location and the dates.

Here's a close-up of the third photo. Scrapbook-sized prints like these can be ordered from Costco. Click HERE for the how-to, and click HERE for the square picture frame (also from Ikea).

I love how the hallway turned out in the end. It's simple, beautiful, and it's a major conversation piece. Such an easy fix for such a big space. Everyone who walks up those stairs (including me, multiple times a day!) stops to take a look at the photos. How are you tackling those blank walls in your home?