displaying family photos

For years I've cut out pages in magazines of how people display their family photos.  The new TRADhome magazine has a couple of wonderful features that shows just that.  I've always wondered...how many is too many?  Is there a right and wrong way to display them?  Are some rooms, like the dining room off limits?  This is how we have done it in our current home.  How do you display your treasured family photos?  I would love to hear.

Photos in my desk armoire.  I always think I'm going to change them from time to time, but then I get attached and just add a new one.

This is a built in at the top of our stairs. I had wanted this inset to be shelves where I could prop my various sized black and white photos.  We ended up with this...I'm not sure if this is the best use of space, but I tried a few other collections, like my McCoy pottery, but nothing has looked quite right.  The sizes are bit awkward and I'm not one to fill it with "stuff" from Homegoods or the like.  Everything has to have a story.  For a while I had all the pottery pieces my kids ever made.  My goodness there's a lot of it, thanks to the wonderful art programs at their former schools in CT.  The colors and shapes just gave me a headache. 

We hung the black and whites above the paneled walls in the staircase.

The good thing about moving is that it forces you to purge (I did way too much of that), sort (which helps you find and rediscover thing you forgot you had) and organize.  Over the years I've bought books that have to do with raising a young lady and a gentleman.  The yellow book my daughter and I found at the JFK terminal book store on our first visit back to New York a few months after we moved to California.  Our little controversy has to do with 2 pages in the book.  One says, "Limit your time in California."  The other, "Live in New York."  The truth is, I love both places.

Watching the ticker tape parade from my husbands office window at 100 Broadway.