Floor Plans & Ideas: The First Floor, Part 4: Decorating The Stairs

I hope I didn't promise you that I would wrap up the first floor in 4 posts. If I did, it was a lie. It is going to take 5 whole posts to wrap this baby up. And, you never know with me... could be 6!
Let's take a look at the ideas I have for how to decorate the stairs today. 

Here are the plans for the first floor.

Decorating The Stairs:
In our current house, I decorated the stairs with a photo gallery on one side and a random collection of things hanging from clothespins on wires on the other side. I liked it, and may end up doing something similar, but the one thing I want to avoid is hanging thing at "swinging elbow height." It seems like pictures were always flying off the wall with a swipe of the elbow. Apparently, I was pretty clever and I removed the glass before the first swinging elbow came to town so it was never a huge mess.

Here is what I had before:

Get ready for an upgrade because here are some of the fancy things I am thinking of. Although, it should be known that mine will not look anywhere near as fancy.


I love the big mats and simplicity of this stairwell. I won't go with the bugs, but they are pretty cool.

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I like this one because it is cool and eclectic, but it wouldn't work with a baby toddler.

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I'm not going to be wearing fancy backless dresses going up our stairs anytime soon nor am I planning to have photos of rock stars gracing the walls, but I do think the idea of having just a few large photos going up the stairs. Black and white seems like a good idea to keep things simple.

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This one also would not work because of the babytoddler, but I love the similar frames and big mats. It seems like the big mat helps a lot when you have a large grouping of photos so it doesn't seem too busy.

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Brenda Knight photography made up this little guide of how to hang pictures in the stairs. I am going for a slightly bigger look, but I love how nicely she laid this out.

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This drawing, from Design Formula, gives you a nice layout plan and some spacing guidelines so you aren't constantly bumping pictures off with your hands going up and down the stairs.

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Here are the first 3 posts about first floor ideas: 
Part 1: The porch, the foyer, and the garage
Part 2: The bathroom
Part 3: The massage room/ guest bedroom

Now, go decorate your stairs and send me some photos for inspiration, please!