How to Guide for Hanging Art in the Home

Artwork is what really brings a room to life. It is such an impactful element that it is often is used as a main focal point to draw the eye in. Sometimes a single piece of artwork can be the source of inspiration for designing entire room. But even with the right piece of art, if it’s not hung at the right height, or spaced appropriately, it can fall short on bringing the room together. Worse, it can stand out for the wrong reasons.

And while there are times where you may deviate from these guidelines, this How-To Guide is a no-fail guide you can always rely on. These easy steps will help your artwork stand out in the best way…

Image by @spacejoy via Unsplash

The helpful guide above illustrates the DO’s to implement for hanging art. The examples are some of the most common areas for hanging art above furniture, but the height and spacing guidelines will be used for any other scenario, as well.

When hanging artwork above a piece of furniture, you can allow 4-8 inches of space between the furniture and the artwork. Often times, going beyond 8 inches will create a big span of blank space that makes the artwork look disconnected to the furniture.

So what is the best height to hang art at? The goal should be to have it hung at eye level. As shown above, that will be at a range of 57-60 inches from the floor to the center of the artwork, where most hangers or hooks are mounted. If you have art with mounting at the top of the piece, you still want to use the center of the piece when measuring from the floor.

And if you are hanging two art pieces beside each other, space the art 2-4 inches apart. Anymore will create too much space in between and will be where the eye goes, especially in cases where you are centering this above a piece of furniture and you want the art to be a focal point for a space. Additionally, when considering the size of the artwork, you want it to occupy 2/3 the width of the furniture, like the example in the guide, with two art pieces hung above a dresser. Of course, there may be times when you may find you have art that is more narrow than that, perhaps a vertical painting above a dresser. An easy fix to make that work is to style the area on top of the dresser on either side of the painting to fill in some of the space with items like vases, plant, or pottery — it will give the illusion to the eye that it is wide enough and is a good workaround for making that art work.