July 2, 2020

How to hang art in your home

Featured image: Molly Culver

Your Design Questions Answered: I need to start putting up more wall decorations, pictures and art. Can we get some advice. How much is too much? How high or low should they be? Can we mix frame colours? Can we mix art and pictures?

I can completely understand why so may of you are so confused when it comes to this because there really are no hard and fast rules about hanging artwork, but there are definitely things to keep in mind when committing to banging those holes in your much loved walls!

The 57inch rule

So many people ignore this! Put simply, the midline of your picture should be 57inches from the floor up. Would you believe it, this is the average human eye height and is used in galleries and museums across the globe to ensure looking at pictures in their spaces is a pleasurable experience and not confusing on the eye or simply a pain in the neck!! Pictures need to connect to the furniture in the room, so use this figure as a general rule and you will find your artwork sits beautifully in your chosen space and, importantly, flows effortlessly from one room to the next around your home.

www.apartmenttherapy.com

Mackenzie Schieck

Room to breathe

Think about leaving 7-10cm between each artwork or picture when hanging. This will give a uniform look and gives each piece enough space to breathe without looking like they don’t relate to the pieces around them if you are creating a grouping of pictures.

A bit odd

It’s a not very well hidden secret of styling that we always group accessories in odd numbers and the same applies to artwork. There’s no real science behind it, it just looks better!

Gallery walls

If you are looking to create a statement in your space, then a gallery wall is a great way of adding the wow factor to your walls. There are a number of ways of doing this…

Picture ledges

These are very thin or narrow shelves which sit very close to the wall. Rather than committing to hanging each individual picture, these give you lots of flexibility to move things around your space. If you are using more than one, make sure you get that mid-line at 57 inches!

Jo Wearing

Jodi Pudge

Salty Spaces

Structured grid

This is as it says on the tin – a very structured grid like arrangement of identical or similar sized frames in the same style which creates a very smart, polished look.

The DIY Playbook

Kanto Korniza

Asymetric

This is the middle ground between the straight laced and the crazy! Always arrange around the midline of your hero image to ensure a balanced grouping.

The Design Chaser

Ecclectic

This is where pictures are grouped much more freely. This can involve a variety of sizes of frames or an eclectic mix of frames, but there does need to be some continuity to unify the group. Keep at least one thing the same throughout – the same style of frame, the same colour palette or a running theme throughout. And remember that mid-line. Choose your hero image and hang that at the all important 57 inches and then work around it with the remaining pieces.

The Every Girl

mixandmatchdesign.com

Sun Ngo

A final top tip is to draw round each piece onto newspaper or plain paper, cut out and lay the grouping out on the floor until you have a layout that seems to work for you. Make sure by blue-tacking to the wall and then mark out your hooks before removing the paper.