Hang and Forget

Hanging a picture frame may sound easy, but it comes with more caveats than a hospital bill. Whether you rent or own your home, minimizing home damage and maximizing style is a constant objective. To do so, check out these common techniques for safely adding some wall art to your home.

Find the Studs

This is an extremely important rule of hanging a picture on the wall. For light frames, a stud is not necessary. However, frames can get heavy, and your wall’s plaster isn’t nearly strong enough to hold something with such a pinpoint surface area. Studs are simple to find with the right tool, a stud finder. It’s essentially an extremely sensitive level that detects the pressure being applied to the wall from each side. After finding a stud, lightly mark off its location with a pencil.

Hang at Eye-Level

You want to be able to see every angle of what’s hanging. A painting’s pristine brush strokes cast new colors every hour of the day, and you need to be able to enjoy them from any view point. The best way to ensure this is by hanging your favorite piece at eye-level. Imagine having your favorite framed piece five feet above where you would naturally see it. Rather than “eye balling” it, use a tape measure from the ground up to determine where the spot may be relative to your eye’s natural resting place.

Know Your Space

Take into account how large what you’re hanging is. Will you be hanging more than one frame? Both hanging one large frame and hanging multiple smaller frames require attention to spacing. Leave a couple inches in between each frame to display any patterns on your wall and not overload the scene. The space needs to “breathe” and not overwhelm anyone looking. Additionally, you may have frames of varying designs or materials. Putting these frames too close together forces each design to compete with the others.

Building the aesthetic for your home is tough, but hanging your favorite paintings or pictures doesn’t have to be. If you stick to the basics and follow these tips, decorating your walls with your favorite art can be quite simple. Now, you just have to decide which pieces are worthy of being on your wall.