An easy and simple DIY picture ledge tutorial. Help give some life to your walls and show off your favorite memories.
This past weekend, Josh and I tackled something that has been on our to-do list for over four years: finishing our picture ledges!
As much as I love documenting our life here on this blog, I’m horrible about taking photos from the digital world to the real world and actually printing out photos and displaying them.
Our apartment has big beautiful ceilings that I really want to take advantage of while we’re living here. What better way to do so than by displaying some of our most precious memories for us to see every day? As much as I love technology, I hate that that we relegate most of our memories to Facebook photo albums, iPhone storage, and USB drives.
A DIY Picture Ledge Tutorial
The great thing about DIY picture ledges is that they are really simple to put together. Once you have the materials, set-up only takes a few hours.
So you might be wondering, “Erin, if it’s so easy to do, why did it take you four years to do it?” You guys, I’m not even kidding: the frames. Picking out the size, color, and styles of the frames seemed like such a huge ordeal, and one that if I did wrong would make the whole wall look horrible.
That’s why for four years our wall looked like this:
So embarrassing. Can you tell I’m a perfectionist? But by being so afraid to mess up, I made our apartment look horrible and unfinished for so long.
Two morals to this story: 1. done is better than perfect (because nothing can ever be perfect) and 2: seize the day.
When Gordmans reached out to ask if we could partner up on some upcoming posts for my blog, I knew that day to seize was today. Because Gordmans just so happens to have a fabulous home decor section and sells quality frames for prices that can’t be beat.
I don’t think Josh thought I was serious about finishing this photo wall until we were walking up and down the frame aisles at Gordmans looking at frames and laying out options in the middle of the aisle.
I ended up going with black matte frames (some matted, some not) in a mix of 4×6, 5×7, and 8×10 sizes. I wanted a simple, clean look that would really let the photos shine.
Would you believe I got all 10 frames for less than $100? I couldn’t even believe it.
After picking the frames it was time to get the layout on the wall right. My goal was to a have a mix of horizontal and vertical photos that played nicely with the artwork we already had picked out for the wall.
Once we had the frames everything fell into place. I learned quickly by playing around with layout options that the photos looks best when they’re arranged in the shape of a bell curve. Your eye is drawn to the largest frames so they should always be in the center of the ledge with the smallest photos on the edges.
While I worked on laying out the frames, Josh worked on printing out our photos. It was a walk down memory lane to see some of these pictures. I absolutely love how they look in the frames.
What a gift, to have designed something that makes you so happy to see, and to know it’s the life you’re living that’s making you smile.
I can safely say we will always have photo ledges from this point forward. I can’t wait to see what special memories we add to these in the future.
Questions of the Day: Do you display photos in your house? Have you ever created a photo ledge or picture wall? Anyone else fear starting something if they worry it won’t be perfect?
Thanks to Gordmans for sponsoring this post. Find a store near you to check out these fantastic frame deals for yourself!
This is so cute!! I love having actual photos in the house and I do display them but we don’t really have a ton of room, so there aren’t a lot of them.
-Lauren
Love the ledge idea! Might have to try this out on my wall!!!
The photos are gorgeous! I love the look of the shelves, I need to do a little something in my room for extra table space.
THis is perfect! Im wanting to do this in our bedroom!
LOVE this! But I think you need a picture of three of your favorite girlfriends to really complete it! 😉
Yes!! We realized we have like two photos with Josh and friends. All the others he’s taking photos of me with our friends! This was the only quality one we’re both in!
What a beautiful decor idea! I love family pictures displayed in the house!
Fantastic ideas. My walls are too empty, they need beautification.
Your wall looks great! I have a similar look in my office. I have one framed photo from every country that I have visited.
I love a photo shelf. It’s a great idea to showcase so many amazing memories.
I love how this turned out! I’d want to do it in a stained wood to go with the rustic theme that we have, but these are beautiful and easy enough!
I love the look of this!!! Really warms up a room!
That turned out so cute! I totally feel you on this one. I have two boxes of picture frames I’ve collected over the last 10 years…and not a single picture printed to put in them. It’s crazy how long we can put things off! I should really get to work on that, like ASAP!
I love decorating with photos! This turned out wonderfully??
My husband and I built some for our home and it has been a huge success! You can change things out so easily without holes all over the wall and worrying about hanging things straight! Glad you got it done after 4 years! It looks wonderful!
the ledges look great! i love how you can piece different size and style frames
I need to spruce up my apartment so i will definitely give this a try!
I do not have many family pictures on my walls because I struggle with having a design plan to make them look good. I really love this idea 🙂
We did a DIY photo ledge shelf in our apartment too! I love how easy it is and how you can customize it for every season as well 🙂
done is better than perfect.. I love that but I think that’s perfect.. It’s really lovely and great.
can you come over and do my house?! this is such a cute idea!
great tutorial. I’m gonna have to do this in my office. Thanks!
I love how this turned out! The black frames were a great choice!
This is an awesome DIY idea for a picture ledge. It’s great that you have taken advantage of your high ceilings. Wahoo!
I would love to have something like this in my next house! It looks great. My bf and I have a picture frame hanging on the wall,where you can fit in 8 pictures. We only have four in it, because basically…we’re too lazy to print out four other pictures. It just looks like our house is never finished (which is true haha).
I like the clean look of these shelves. They could be used anywhere in the house which makes them even nicer to put up and use.
I love this! I love having real pictures out because most people just have them on their phone nowadays. Thanks for sharing!
Those shelves look great! I love how they turned out! I definitely need to get more photos printed and framed and find a way to display them around my home.
I love this! I would love to make something like this for my living room.
This looks great! Thanks for sharing your idea!
Looks nice! I am really bad about printing off pics and displaying them too. Luckily my hubby is better at that so thanks to him we have pictures all over our house.
I love the finished look! I am in the same boat as you, I take A TON of pictures but rarely get around to printing and displaying them in my home.
I love this! What a pretty look.
i have a huge blank wall and this would be perfect!!!
We are renovating our family room and this would fit in perfectly. I am not a DIY person, but this one seems easy enough for me to do and make it look really nice!
This looks so good!!! Way to go!
Nice work! Looks great. Helpful info!
Looks great! What a great way to decorate a wall and on a budget, too!
Nice ideas! My husband is a photographer on the side so we have tons of pictures but none are printed. My son is 19months and nothing has been printed since his 1st birthday. Time to do it.
This is great! I love how putting up pictures can transform a room. Love the frames and how you displayed them. Thank you for sharing.
I think the overall effects you have achieved are stunning! They look great. I hope it doesn’t take me four years to sort and get mine done.
I’ve been wanted to try some picture ledges for some pretty plates I have, but I’m scared they will be too heavy!
We’re in the process of searching for and buying a home right now but as soon as we do I want to put up a photo ledge in our dining room. We have stacks of framed photos already waiting to go up, we just have to find the right home first.
Great Ideas! Great way to relive precious memories.
It looks so good. And you can fit so many photos on it. Totally in love.
I LOVE THIS! I need to do floating shelves in my makeup room.
I love this! I’m terrible at putting these things together but we’re getting ready to move and I really want to attempt it!
I’ve always thought this would be a fun thing to put together. I need to do that soon. 🙂