How Family Photos Transformed A Dark, Narrow, Weird Stairwell

Dr. Gollum loves to take photographs. A few years ago, we had them matted, and then we entered them in the local fair. He didn't win a ribbon, but I loved the photos and decided to frame them in the "basement staircase." It's so narrow and odd, even the Yorkies won't bother with it. They sit on the landing and watch me, as if to say, "Our mother is so strange. Why must she hammer and hammer?"

The stairway was further complicated by painted boards--you can see them going up both sides, and it's all my fault. I thought it would solve the handprint problem; but it certainly made hanging art a challenge. Dr. Gollum was more than happy to hammer the Way Up High nails, and he hung the pictures, too.

If you look close, you can see A Very Young Gollum with a marmalade cat on his head--this picture was taken over a decade ago in a Welsh churchyard (er, graveyard, or kirkyard).
So, as it happened, this stairway was brightened up considerably with family photos. Whenever I go downstairs, I can't help but pause a moment and smile at the swans from the Serpentine Pond or the snowman in the front yard of our first house or Blarney Castle (where, after a lot of climbing, I did NOT get the gift of gab). LOL

I know many design lists eschew photos, but personally? I don't understand those lists. I would really love to know who thinks up this stuff. And I'd love to tell them that they're wrong. A simple photo has the power to bring back a moment from a long ago trip, a smiling child, and a cat in a kirkyard.