When you move to a new home it can seem a daunting task to make the place feel like home, before you’ve had a chance to re-decorate in your own style. This is where the humble photograph comes in, you can easily personalise your home using your photography.
We take more photographs now than at any time in the past and yet the vast majority of them rarely see the light of day after the initial taking, reviewing and round of social media posting. Like the envelopes of prints from the past our digital images are doomed to a life lost in the digital equivalent of the bottom of the wardrobe. That is unless we liberate them and use them to bring our personality into our homes.
There are endless ways of using photography to stamp a personal touch on your home, whether you have recently moved or are long established and unlike paint and wallpaper they can be changed easily and cheaply whenever the mood takes you. Here are my top three personal favourite ways to use photographs around your home:
Growing Up Fast
Create a collage or multi-frame group of the kids or grand-kids as they grow up. I created one a few years ago of my daughter, I took one picture from each year of her life and put them in a single frame to show her development from a tiny baby to a pre-teen. I love glancing at the pictures every time I descend the stairs, it brings back happy memories and reminds me that current traumas and difficulties will pass as the next phase of growing up happens.
Wish You were There
The obligatory screening of the family holiday snaps is (thankfully) a thing of the past as most of us these days post our holiday pictures to social media as we are there but what happens to your pictures when you come back. That beautiful sunset or the stunning panorama, don’t keep them hidden away on your smartphone. Why not take advantage of the myriad of online printers and get the best one printed on canvas or framed and make it into a feature somewhere in your home.
A Month at a Time
Calendars, we may use electronic ones, but the family wall calendar is still alive and kicking, at least in my family it is. It’s the best way of keeping track of who’s going out and when, school holidays and those all-important birthdays. Every year I create a personal calendar with twelve favourite photos from the past year. It sits proudly in my kitchen with a new picture each month helping me keep track of the family. My calendar also doubles as a great Christmas gift for close relatives.
Room mock-up created with WallApp from www.ohmyprints.com
This post was originally titled, How to Stamp your Personality on a Home using Photography. It appeared on the website of K Design and Build who invited me to write a guest post for them. Their site is now being redeveloped and the post is no longer available in its original location.