All of the design lovers in your life want Find Yourself At Home.

I take any opportunity to actually visit the home of the people I interview my stories in Oregon Home magazine.
And sometimes I cry.
I cry in other peoples’ houses.
When I cry it’s always just tearing up, and I muffle it well (the cry settles in my stomach, not healthy!). The people I interview rarely see it. They’re busy showing me this or that. But it’s there, and I’ve accepted this about myself and am never embarassed or afraid.
I know where this happens — pretty much in anyone’s home — but been thinking about when it happens, and why, and I think it comes down to this:
When I walk into a room and get a sense of what’s truly personal there,
I am flooded with feels.
I suspect that’s why I’ve never ever cried in a new build or model home and why I teared up a few weeks ago interviewing a couple for Oregon Home’s winter issue.
It was a family home built in the late 1990s but which had been renovated to be less stuffy, less drafty, less oppressive (brighter and lighter), and more reflective of who the couple actually was.
This house!
And by “this house,” what I really mean is: “these humans!”
It was one of the best interviews I’ve ever had, and that lays almost 100% on my subject matter — a couple who really understood themselves.
Values-driven design
The Colemans have been living in one home in the upper Willamette Valley for 25 years, but their values, priorities, and design understanding have shifted over time.
With their kids raised, this couple wanted all the formality gone from their home. They wanted a place that called their people home, a home elegant but laid-back and inviting. This house also got a lot of environmental upgrades, so it’s also an inspiration, but mostly it was all about family — with spaces set up for enjoyment for several generations.
The room that made me cry was the library. It also made the Oregon Home cover based on the preferences of our entire editorial team.
The library was this cozy snug of a room with books and dark colors and chairs for really settling in. It had moody art (moody being dreamy, here, the owner is an artist), and the thing that make the tears flow: A giant wall of 46 family photographs in their original frames.
These were not professional photos. No one wore a family color palette. None looked posed for holiday newsletters (I just did this myself, btw, see below). They were just snapshots through time, in their original printed form, displayed in their original frames.
There were 90s frames alongside 80s frames, early 2000s frames and more recent additions, along with frames from God-knows-what-decade.
Most importantly, there were 46 of them!
It was extraordinary. I get weepy thinking of it. The collection completely upended how I see displaying family photographs in the home.
Mismatched or matching?
It seems everyone has an idea of whether or not to frame wall art with matching frames or with unmatched frames that live in conversation with each other. House Beautiful even took up the questions a few weeks ago, talking specifically about gallery walls.
At the moment, many designers are going all in on mismatched framing to create more of a collected feel. I get it — these are lovely, and this one area where a designer can really add value to a project.
It’s actually quite hard to do this well. Entire corners of the Internet are devoted to trying to teach you how.
But maybe it’s all a little misguided. Maybe what some of us need isn’t an artfully arranged vertical collection but a make-me-cry gallery wall.
I’ve spoken before about how important for wellbeing it is not to live in a home like you are going to sell it the next day — to slow-curate it over time to be about a conversation with the self and an outer representation of the inner spirit.
But one thing I’ve never really worked on was placing imagery of my family in a place that is prominent and well used.
From the desk of a frame hater
I keep a photo of my husband with the kids and of me with the kids right behind my desk, and some pictures of us with my mom. I have other spots where beloved family turn up, like the fridge or the upstairs bookshelf.
But I’ve had really strong reactions to giant collections of frames on mantles and pianos and horizontal surfaces of any kind. For me, it’s complete aesthetic overwhelm.
The house I visited a few weeks ago has me rethinking how great original, mismatched frames can be, especially small ones, and how I want to include my family and ancestors in my home.
I don’t have original frames. But I have lots of family snapshots that aren’t professionally photographed and are the classic 3x5 or 5x7.
I have entire drawers and boxes filled with them. I have albums and loose collections and I’m so tender looking at them.
I’m going to try it: A make-me-cry family wall.
I’ll probably raid our photo collection and head to Goodwill with a very open mind about frames. I’m looking for some blank space in my home (wish me luck!) and getting out the tissue boxes.
P.S. It doesn’t have to be about family. I cried in the Georgia O’Keefe House the other day, which I’ll tell you about soon.
Emily’s 2024 Holiday newsletter family pic
Definitely only sending this to only paid subscribers. My kids would kill me.
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