Please Don't Hang Up
There is no polite way to say this. People hang their artwork too high, and I'm not sure why. It is rare that I go into a house where the pictures are hung properly and when I do find that diamond in the rough I start beaming and smothering the homeowner with praise and thanks.
Here are 10 artwork hanging rules to follow:
1. Typically the center of the artwork should be about 60" from the floor. The average eye-level.
2. The art should fill the space proportionately. Most people have artwork that is too small for the wall.
3. Art should be 6-8" above the back of your couch or bed headboard and span 2/3 of the overall length.
4. Vertical or horizontal matters depending on the space you need to fill.
5. If the artwork is a collection of things you need to treat the entire collection as one thing.
6. Collections of artwork, or gallery, hung together should have 2-4" between them both horizontally and vertically. If it is a very large room up to 4-6". Wayfair has a great tutorial on creating a gallery wall.
7. The length of the overall window frame is a factor that can sometime change rule #1. You need to consider the middle sash line and your artwork relating to each other.
8. Don't have the same formula of artwork on every wall. For example: a gallery on one wall, a large single piece on another, some things hanging vertical and some hanging horizontally.
9. Not every space needs to have something hanging in it. There is such a thing as too much stuff on the walls. Artwork should create flow and allow your eye to travel throughout the room. It should be a calming movement, not sensory overload.
10. How to actually hang things on the wall is another lesson. Hillary Tuttle, from Stellers Gallery, sums it up well. Click here to link to her instructions.
You will need a pencil, step ladder, level, hammer, picture hanging hooks, a tape measure, a measuring stick (I prefer a long level that has yard stick markings printed on it), painters tape to map out the placement (especially for a grouping of art) and maybe a helper to hold things up while you step away and look from afar.