Memoribilia on the Z-axis

The balance : Non-functional tchotchkes collecting dust and cluttering up floorspace and surfaces? Souvenirs and heirlooms that personalize a house and make it feel like home? My solution for this conundrum has been to intentionally use wall space to display sentimental items!

Jump ahead to read about how it is okay to update your gallery over time, the hanging process, and categories of memoribilia that work as wall art.

Full disclosure: This blog post is more for me than anyone else.

Evolution of Our Gallery Wall

Iteration 1

When my husband and I moved in together after getting married , we had to combine two households’ worth of sentimental wall art into far fewer walls. Here’s how it all came together in a gallery wall in our first apartment in Northampton, MA.

Iteration 2

I repeated the process when we moved into our tiny Cambridgeport apartment in 2018. Can you spy the updates I made?

The Sri Lankan prosperity mask was a new gift, and I stretched the elephant tapestry onto a DIYed wooden frame (instead of a curtain rod).

Iteration 3

And finally! Here is the gallery wall in our current condo! Hanging all this over the staircase while keeping our necks intact was… not guaranteed…

The Process

For regular (non-stairwell) walls, I began by laying out craft paper on the floor to match the size of the wall. Then I laid the artwork out on top of the paper until the arrangement looked good. Next, I traced each piece and marked with s exactly where each nail would have to go. I taped the paper onto the wall (with painter’s tape), and made sure all the traced artwork edges were level. Finally, I put nails in as marked, pulled the craft paper down, and hung the artwork up with no accidental holes!

For the stairwell, things were more complicated. I started with taping craft paper onto the wall. I tore the paper around the existing wall sconces. While the paper was up, I drew level s all over the paper randomly, and also measured 40” up from each stair tread to draw a slanted line parallel to the stairs. Finally, I took the paper down, flattened it on the floor, then laid artwork out as before.

The Stories

I do, in fact, love sentimental items! Here are the different types of memoribilia that I’ve been able to display on a wall instead of on a surface:

1. souvenirs from international trips (and my DIY pinboard map )
2. family heirlooms
3. artwork that we picked out as a couple
4. gifts from friends and family

1. Souvenirs from International Trips

	Rajasthan, India January 2008 Growing up, trips to India mixed family time with travel. On one winter visit, we toured Rajasthan—known for Rajput warriors, vivid textiles, and miniature paintings—and I brought one home.
	Cairo, Egypt June 2010 During a Middle East & North Africa backpacking trip, ending in Barcelona for Spain’s first World Cup win! , my husband Ari bought this papyrus painting of the Egyptian goddess Ma’at.
	Siem Reap, Cambodia August 2011 The following summer, I visited the Angor Wat Temple and Ta Prohm (Jungle Temple), both of which were decorated with these apsara (heavenly) dancer carvings.
	Bangkok, Thailand August 2012 On another backpacking trip through Southeast Asia, Ari visited Wat Saket (Golden Mount) Temple in Bangkok. He came home with this painting, new motorcycle scars , a Thai cookbook , and no regrets.

DIY Pinboard Map. Given all our travels, I thought a pushpin world map would be fun. I decided to DIY my own using my husband’s laminated National Geographic world map (…ask for forgiveness, not permission! ), a couple sheets of 1/4” thick corkboard, mod-podge, and some trim and stain. Ta da!

Our pins are colored for my trips , Ari’s trips and trips we’ve taken together .

2. Extended Family Memories

Remembering loved ones. My maternal grandmother’s brother, Nilakantan (Nila Mama, born 1920), was an endlessly interesting and kind person. He never had children of his own, which made him a super patient and fun uncle to his (great-)nieces and (great-)nephews.

• Iran ~1940. Nila Mama served in the Indian Army (then part of the British Empire) during and after WW2. At a Red Sea posting, he was brought (despite only being a junior cadet) to a dinner hosted by the Shah of Iran to serve as a translator for his commanding officers. All guests received these custom-engraved brass plates.

• Nepal early 1950s. Nila Mama was stationed in Ladakh, a northern border region of newly-independent India. This painting was purchased during a weekend trip to neighboring Nepal.

Family pictures. Family pictures are essential for personalizing a home, but displaying them in tabletop frames can be a slippery slope toward clutter… I display family photos in our entryway stairwell, and I also hung up pictures of our extended family and ancestors in our hallway:

These were originally displayed at our wedding. Afterward, I removed the frame stands and attached picture wire with D-ring hooks so we could hang them on the wall.

3. Mutually Agreeable Artwork

Buying art for your home happens slowly . One of the underrated perks of our 30s (/a decade into marriage) has been getting to choose art together , not out of urgency to fill walls, but out of shared, co-evolving taste and shared history.

	Siona Benjamin Print 2025 We finally bought Finding Home #46: Tikkun ha-Olam for our 10th anniversary after eyeing it since 2013. It feels like a reflection of how we choose to live: blending our cultures in a way that feels natural and authentic.
	Elephant Tapestry 2014 We bought this in Bengaluru on our first trip to India together, at the same shop where I bought my wedding lehenga. PSA: Treating wall tapestries with fabric UV protector can help prevent fading!
	Peruvian Sun/Moon Mirror 2019 When my sister got married, we chose this piece to mark our growing family and as inspiration to visit my brother-in-law’s home country.

4. Gifts from Family & Friends

Buying any art for someone else is risky!! It can (and should!) be a personal choice. That said, we’ve been lucky to receive a few keepers from family and friends that we genuinely love!

Here it is, all together, one last time!

If you’re trying to balance sentimental pieces with constrained space, the gallery wall approach has worked well for us!

Shilpa Kobren is the Associate Director of Rare Disease Analysis at Harvard Medical School where she focuses on analyzing genomic sequencing data with patient clinical information to derive insights into human diseases. Shilpa lives in an 1890s urban apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and two energetic toddlers. She retains her sense of peace amid the chaos by creating and iteratively improving systems that optimize daily efficiency in her family's constrained living space.