How we use our staircase wall space

Last year during the summer holidays, I repainted parts of the house. The staircase ended up looking like this:

It is a rental house so we are not allowed to make any big changes and the Man Of The House does not want to spend money on some one else's property.  It took a lot of convincing for me to repaint two rooms and a staircase...

We added four pin boards to the staircase wall.  It is covered with an African print fabric in four different shades. The pin boards allow us to change the displays on the staircase without damaging the walls, and it prevents (some of) the finger marks which used to mark the walls. (My children and their friends are incapable of climbing stairs without running their dirty little hands along the entire length of the staircase wall.) 

The board at the bottom of the stairs holds all the current evidence of our lives.  Photos, pictures, projects, etc.  It is visible from the front door and living room and is for things we want on public display.

The second one is the Family Board.  Here we have pictures of cousins, grandparents and other family members from far away.  In this way we can see them every morning and every evening to make sure we don't forget them.

The third board is the family office.  Calenders, school notes, party invitations, important numbers, etc comes here.  Now every morning on the way to breakfast we can make sure we know what the schedule is for the day. (In theory.  We still forget things...)

The last board near the landing is the fun board. Interesting clippings, photos, sport awards, tickets for upcoming events and other inspirational things go here.

On the landing we have a white board on floor height.  This is for the little ones to draw pictures and write letters to imaginary friends.  There is a bucket full of whiteboard markets in all colours on the floor next to it.  

Above that is a world map.  For planning travels, seeing where all the other kids from International School comes from and for locating the places we see on the Travel Channel.

Also to remind us we are small and the world is big.  

And wonderful.