The most common mistake noticed by interior designers is artwork that has been hung incorrectly. The following are some pointers to ensure you don’t fall into this trap too:

• Use a measuring tape, especially if you are hanging art in a small space with minimal furniture or bold design features, such as a hallway, mudroom, or stairwell.
• Larger pieces are typically easier to hang in a space.
• Hang single pieces at or around eye level. The midpoint should sit between 57 to 60 inches from the floor, which is the average person’s visual eyeline.
• If hanging art above a piece of furniture, the bottom of the frame should be no more than 4 to 6 inches above the top of the furniture.
• Art hung above a sofa or console (or other fairly wide piece of furniture) should measure two thirds of the width of the furniture (either as a single piece, or a grouping of pieces).
• Treat two pieces of art as one, and hang symmetrically side by side or one on top of the other.
• When hanging one piece above another, the midpoint marker should be 57-60 inches from the floor. There should be about two inches of space between each frame.
• When creating a gallery wall, hang large and medium sized pieces about 2 or 3 inches apart. Smaller pieces can be spaced between 1 ½ to 2 ½ inches apart.

Gallery Walls

When your goal is to hang several pieces of art together to form what is known as a ‘Gallery Wall’, determine your layout before you start hanging. This can be a daunting process since there are multiple pieces that need to be arranged.

An easy way to select your layout is to use blank sheets of paper. Clear a large space on the floor, and play around with the sheets of paper as if they were the pieces of art, and the floor was the wall. This allows you to try out as many layouts as you need to until you find one that appeals to you. Then copy the layout as you hang your art on the wall.

Another option is using blank graph paper and sketching your art into various layouts. This method lets you scale your layout according to the various sizes of artwork you plan to hang together.

One thing to keep in mind regardless of how many pieces of art you want to hang together, generally the largest pieces should be contained toward the center of your layout, with the smaller pieces hung towards the outer edges.

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