The Art of Hanging Art on the Walls in Your Home

When you’re reaching the final stages of decoration, you always have to deal with the difficult task of picking out, and correctly placing all the photos, paintings, prints, and other forms of art you hang up on your walls. Hanging things on your wall is a true art, and doing it right can make your interior design look like the work of a professional.

Some rooms need a special touch when it comes to hanging art on the walls. Modern rooms tend to have huge walls that seem impossible to fill up. Or in some cases, you might actually have a lot of prints that you want to put up, but don’t know how best to distribute them.

So, how do you know how high up to put them? Where will they look best? Should you hang up one or several on a single wall? 

If you’ve asked yourself any of these questions, keep reading for our tips and tricks on hanging art in your home. They’ll look perfect, and will create a coherent sense of style, along with a touch of your own personality.

Hanging art in your home to bring it to life

Whether big or small, paintings, prints, and photos can be amazing for your home decor. Our advice is not to let the size of a wall intimidate you. These are things you’ll be looking at all the time, so focus your energy elsewhere. Think about which pieces really spark emotions within you. 

But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to factor in the size of the wall at all. This still matters. If it’s a small wall, you should choose small-to-medium pieces to avoid cluttering it too much.

On the other hand, if you have a large wall, you can definitely choose a few big pieces or a larger number of medium-sized pieces.

Artwork is a decorative accessory that can work for any room in your home. Hallways, bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms…all of these are places that can benefit from a personal touch, and the flair of a painting or a print. Just make sure to pick them out based on how much space you have, and to keep them within the theme of the room.

How high up to hang things

This is one of the most important aspects of hanging art on the walls in your home. The general rule is to hang them at eye level. Still, there are a lot of exceptions to that rule depending on the size of the art and the wall, and what kind of look you’re going for.

There’s also an interior design rule that always works when it comes to figuring out how high up to hang things on your wall: they should be closer to the furniture beneath them than they are to the ceiling. If they’re closer to the ceiling, it’ll make them seem out of place.

How should you distribute them?

This is another area where a single mistake can kill the overall aesthetic of a room. It’s best not to start hanging the art before you have a good idea of where everything is going to be in a room. For example, if you end up moving a piece of furniture, it could end up ruining the balance.

Whatever your final distribution, you can make it balanced and harmonious by hanging the art in a way that you can draw an imaginary line right through the middle of each of them.

That line should help you determine if the art is halfway between the ceiling and floor. That’s the best sign that you’ve put the art in the right place.

Walls with one piece of art

If you decide to hang a single piece of art on any of your walls, there are some rules worth keeping in mind. It should be centered and consistent with the rest of the decoration in the room. 

The art should also be thinner than the furniture just beneath it. It should never be wider than the couch or cabinet you have under it. It’s the rule of thirds.

For example, if your couch is 9 feet long, the art above it should be 6 feet wide and hung horizontally. If you hang it vertically, the couch will lose its draw. In other words, it’s really a question of which piece you want to draw people’s eyes to.

Multiple pieces of art

If you want to use multiple pieces of art, there are a few different options. You could hang them vertically, horizontally, or in a cloud. Everything can work so long as you make sure to maintain the overall balance in the room.

It’s also important to make sure you maintain the right amount of space between all the art. Unless you’re going for a different effect, the general rule is that the bigger the pieces, the farther apart they should be.

A unifier

When you make a composition with multiple pieces of art, there should something unifying all of them. That could be a theme, a color, or any other element they have in common. Don’t include any art that won’t work with that unifying concept. It just won’t work aesthetically.

But don’t let that scare you off from using multiple pieces of art. Just try to find a common point and think of a few ways to put them together.