Bye Bye China Hutch, Hello Family Picture Wall

If you would have walked into our home within the last seven years, you would have seen a nice china hutch on the wall next to our dining room table.  It all came together as a set, and I remember loving it at the time we purchased it.  It took up space on an otherwise empty wall, and it held the china that was given to me from my great aunt's estate when she passed away.

It also became the location for Legos as Caleb grew up and began to build with them.

But now that our family has grown to six members, we really need the room around the entire table.  The space between the hutch and the table was barely enough for a chair, and that was ok when no one sat on that end...not ok when an 8-year-old likes sitting on that end.

I have also always wanted a large, family picture wall.

So I decided to sell the hutch to free up space and give me a wall to work with!  After it was gone, I started brainstorming about how to do the set up for the pictures.  We had many wonderful, gorgeous, perfect pictures taken by Bonnie in October, and I was just dying to get them printed and put up.  I started figuring out what sizes and which combination of pictures I wanted, then I used our dining room table as my way to organize and rearrange (and rearrange, and rearrange) the pictures.

Because I am pretty particular, I then measured between each picture and wrote it down so we could know how far apart they should be on the wall.

It turned out even better than I hoped.  I am just waiting on a wall decal to put across the top - it says: The love of a family is life's greatest blessing.  I was going to order online, but a friend of a friend makes them, so I wanted to give her my business! :)

I am so excited about this wall, and I'm not sure why.  I guess it's because I've wanted to do this for so long, and because I think it makes our house even more homey.  I also think it's because I sometimes still have a hard time with what happened this summer with not moving, and I'm trying to make this place even more lovely for us.

My next wall project is a wedding picture wall - as inspired by a wall my grandma had in her house.  I want to put our wedding picture in the center and then surround it by our parrents' and grandparents' wedding pictures...

Can't wait!