One of our home goals for this year was to do a little revamp for our living room. Not a full change or anything, but I wanted to update a few things that felt stale, including adding some new photos and switching up the gallery wall above our couch.

And as of a few weeks ago when I got all the photos switched out, it is DONE! (Well, the gallery wall, not the whole room!)

Not only do the kids love seeing themselves in the photos (they weren’t in any of them before!), but I think it feels much more simple, modern, and fresh.

Here’s what it looked like before:

It isn’t that I didn’t like the photos (of course I did!), but it had been 7 years since we had updated the space and it felt a little more traditional with the frame styles and variety of photo sizes.

I have seen a ton of amazing grid-style gallery wall inspiration, including from one of my favorite design bloggers, Chris Loves Julia. However, the frames they used, while LOVELY, were not in our budget. (Which was basically zero since we have been on a bit of a spending freeze this fall trying to build back our savings after an expensive few months with some unexpected things.)

So, the frames I used were CHEAP from Wal-Mart.

Guys.

These are less than $3 each right now. Seriously, this entire project was less than $36. That’s the price of two nice frames from Target. (You know I love Target, but I just think if you’re going for a modern gallery wall, there is NOTHING wrong with these cheap ones.

I will say, these are not anti-reflective frames. (I mean, for the price, what do you expect?) But…I am considering trying these from Home Depot to see if it helps any. It honestly isn’t a big deal to anyone but the blogging world probably. But…it would still be nice to not see the ceiling light when I look over to see my family’s smiling faces.

Have any of you used these? Even seen these? It appears to be a special kind of plexi-glass that you just sub in to the frame. It’s not expensive at all,  which is nice. But…it isn’t free. So, I’m fine with letting that be a phase 2 update down the road. It’s great that the total cost per frame would still come in under $10 each. Which is CRAZY cheap for a non-glare frame option. This is a screen grab from a popular framing site that I know does good work…but, was totally out of our price range for this project.

We would have spent $330+ for this project if we had used those frames! I mean…what?!?! THAT is why people think they can’t afford to make updates to their home. That is why I’m a fan of Wal-Mart.

I’m also a fan of using more snapshot style photos for gallery walls. I love that it feels a little more unexpected and causal. Plus, having photos from a variety of seasons of life feels like such a special representation of our lives. There’s even a photo from when Wyatt and I were dating, goofing around in a slide at Silver Dollar City, which is now one of Will’s very favorite places to go. I love those little stories that can be told from a simple casual family photo gallery wall.

I love how it turned out, and surprisingly, I’m really liking how our new living room arrangement is progressing. At first I thought there was NO WAY this wide, spaced out layout could work. We needed a bigger rug, a coffee table, more side tables, and would we have to shout to have a conversation with how far apart everything was?!?

But…with time, it has really grown on me. And the new grid-style gallery wall seems perfect over the couch. Who says displaying family photos can’t be good design? Or that it can’t be affordable? Not me!

(Sidenote, I forgot to mention that I got ALL of these 8 x 10 photos for FREE from Walgreens using their free codes. They usually have one once a month and I had family members help me order them so it didn’t take me months and months to get enough to fill the frames. I try to share them when I see them with my Facebook page, so make sure you’re following, here!)

So, are you a gallery wall person? I went gallery wall CRAZY when we first moved in. (Evidence here.) We had them in EVERY room. And I’ve since scaled back a bit. But…we still have a few that I love. Like this new modern grid style gallery wall for our family photos.

How do you have family photos displayed? Are you a fan of the casual snapshots or the professional prints?