One of the most common decorating dilemmas: you have a huge wall in your house, and you have a piece of artwork you like, but you have NO idea where in the heck it’s supposed to go on the wall. Well, you’ve come to the right place! We’ve put together a foolproof guide to answer all of your art hanging questions.
ARTWORK DILEMMA #1: HOW HIGH SHOULD I HANG MY ARTWORK ON THE WALL?
Rule of thumb is about 60″ from the center of your art to the floor, otherwise known as eye level for the majority of people. This is going to be your best bet when hanging a piece one piece of art by itself.
ARTWORK DILEMMA #2: HOW HIGH DO I HANG MY ARTWORK ABOVE FURNITURE?
Hanging artwork too high above pieces of furniture tends to be one of the biggest design mistakes out there. Usually anywhere from 5-7″ above the piece of furniture will look right. Anything higher than that will likely look disjointed from the furniture.
ARTWORK DILEMMA #3: WHAT ARE THE RULES WHEN I AM HANGING MULTIPLE ART PIECES TOGETHER?
The rule of thumb changes a bit when you’re hanging multiple pictures together in a group.
When hanging artwork together vertically, you’re going to want to treat the multiple pieces as one piece. Meaning, the center of all the pieces together on the wall should be about 60″ from the floor. You may need to modify depending on your ceiling height and how many pieces of art you’re hanging together, but this at least gives you a starting point and we’ve found the formula to be pretty fool proof.
When hanging artwork together horizontally, you’re also going to want to treat your artwork pieces as one when determining how far apart from each other they should go. You’ll want each piece to be no more than 2-3″ apart from one another. If you’re hanging smaller artwork, 1-2″ may be more appropriate.
If you’re hanging a gallery wall in a grid format (i.e. looks like a tic-tac-toe board), you’ll want to select pieces that have the same look and feel. For example, if you’re doing a black and white photo in one of the frames, you’ll want to make all the photos black and white. If you’re hanging a print (i.e. botanicals), you’ll want all of the artwork in the grid to be prints.
If you’re hanging a gallery wall in an unorganized format, throw those rules out the window! You’ll still want to make the center of your gallery wall approximately 60″ above the floor and 2/3 the scale of your furniture, but anything goes in terms of what you’re hanging. The more eclectic, the better! This is a great place to mix items of interest, different metals, different textures and different shapes.
If all else fails, just do what feels (and looks!) right! At the end of the day, it’s YOUR space and it should reflect YOUR personality!