5 Mistakes Everyone Makes When Hanging Pictures

This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of my links, I may make a small profit at no expense to you. For further information, please view my policies.

If you have even one picture or piece of art hanging in your house, then you’re going to want to read this article!

Today we’re looking at how to hang pictures and 5 mistakes most people make when hanging artwork. I’m also going to tell you how to easily fix them!

WATCH THE VIDEO INSTEAD!

---

1. HANGING YOUR ARTWORK TOO HIGH

One mistake I see time and time again is people hanging their artwork and mirrors too high! It’s time to bust out the measuring tape because there IS a magic number that you can use to make sure your artwork is hung correctly every single time.

How high to hang pictures?!

The generally accepted rule in design is that we want the center of the artwork to be at approximately 57″ to 60″ from the floor (or 145 to 150 cms).

This is considered to be the standard “eye-level”. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, like for example if you’re a family of really tall people, then by all means raise the center point!

And you can go a couple of inches higher or lower depending on if you have higher or lower ceilings.

People sometimes panic when they hear this and are like “but what if I have 20′ ceilings??!” The rule doesn’t change. The artwork should still stay at the “standard” eye level.

So when in doubt on how high to hang pictures, the 57/60″ rule is always a good place to start from. And then you can tweak a little based on your particular situation if you need to. Hanging your artwork at eye level will connect it better to the other elements in the room and you will end up enjoying it more.

The exact same rule applies if you’re dealing with a gallery wall, so a grouping of pictures or art pieces.

You should basically treat the grouping as a single art piece, so the center of the grouping would be at about 57″ to 60″ inches from the ground.

Another place where a lot of people tend to hang too high is above pieces of furniture like sofas or credenzas and sideboards and things like that.

How high to hang pictures over furniture

As a rule, the bottom of the artwork should be about 4/6 inches, or 10 to 15 cm from the top edge of the furniture. This distance is going to ensure that you maintain the connection between your art and your furniture piece. You might need a little more clearance behind a piece of furniture like a sofa – some designers even say up to 12″ clearance. So see what fits best for your needs.

Hanging artwork too high is honestly a super common tendency when hanging pictures. So don’t feel bad if you’re looking around now and seeing that you’ve made this mistake. ☺️

2. GETTING THE SCALE WRONG

If you’ve got a big empty wall, the last thing you want to do is hang a dinky little picture in the middle of it. It’s just going to get lost!

(Some designers do this intentionally, but the rest of the room must follow a similar aesthetic. You can experiment with this, but if you’re a beginner with interior design and decorating, I probably wouldn’t recommend this!)

What if you’re dealing with a big empty wall with nothing around it? Then definitely go as big as you can with your art if you’re able to!

The bigger you go, the more of a statement it’s going to make, and the more impressive it will look.

A LOT more ideas for HOW TO FILL HUGE EMPTY WALLS right here!

I know art can be INCREDIBLY expensive. Especially if you’re going big!

Here’s a quick tip: you can get huge, frankly pretty amazing quality prints from places even just like Staples, for like 15 dollars. Just pick a nice high-resolution photo, or buy a high res printable online. Etsy is an amazing marketplace for printables of every imaginable kind! Then send the file off to Staples or somewhere similar and pop the print in a cheap frame from IKEA (my favorites right now are the LOMVIKEN frames). This is one really cheap and effective way to get yourself some very big, very affordable and very PERSONALIZED art!

If you’re hanging art above furniture like your sideboard, sofa, or bed, you need to make sure that your artwork is NOT larger than your furniture. Top-heavy is not generally a good look!

But ALSO, you want to make sure that it’s not too small, either.

The correct ratio is about two-thirds the width of the furniture.

Oh, one last thing about scale – if you’re hanging a very large piece, remember that bigger stuff needs to be further away from the eye in order to be seen properly. So be sure to check if your room is set up in a way that will allow you to properly enjoy your picture.

3. GETTING THE SPACING WRONG

Another really common mistake is to hang multiple art pieces too far apart from each other.

How to hang multiple pictures

If you’re hanging multiple art pieces on one wall, you should be treating them as a single artwork – they’ll read as one anyways.

In general, good spacing between artwork is about 3 to 6 inches or 7/10 cms.

Inconsistent spacing

Another “spacing” mistake commonly made is to have INCONSISTENT spacing between pieces. This just throws everything off.

When in doubt just make paper templates for your art pieces and tape them on the wall first before hanging, to make sure everything is spaced properly.

If you’re doing a gallery wall, you can have different frames and different styles of artwork, but you want to keep the spacing between the pieces cohesive, that’s what going to keep it looking tight and professional!

4. UNDERESTIMATING THE WEIGHT

I feel like I’ve heard the story of art falling down too many times to not bring this up!

Always make sure that whatever you’re hanging on the wall isn’t going to fall down. This is especially true for any frames that have a protective glass pane, or for big mirrors (or TVs). Nobody wants their artwork to come crashing down and shattering into a million pieces.

This means using common sense and NOT using stick-on hooks for heavy pieces!

If you’ve got a really heavy piece and you’re not confident hanging it yourself, then you can always just hire a picture hanger and they’ll come and do it properly for you.

5. NOT PAYING ENOUGH ATTENTION TO FRAMES

The right frame can really enhance a piece of art, the wrong one can become a big distraction. There is A TON to be said about how to frame art, I even worked in a framing store about one million years ago, so I could talk a lot about frames.

But this isn’t an article about how to frame art, it’s about how to hang pictures …

So the tip here is, if you really want to have a well-balanced and cohesive interior, then you need to make sure that your frames are in harmony not ONLY with your art, but with the elements in your room as well.

If you’ve got an eclectic space, you can mix and match frame styles and you’ll be alright (so long as the spacing is consistent between the pieces), but you’ll want to be paying attention to the style of your room to figure out what kind of frame might work well in your space.

You’ll want to consider whether it’s best to go with wood or with metal.

If you’re feeling stuck, in general modern, more abstract pieces, or black and white photos, work well with the simplistic nature of a metal frame, or it can be a wood frame with a very thin and simple profile. And this type of look can work well in a more contemporary space.

And more ornate or maybe chunkier wooden frames can work well with more traditional paintings or pieces of art. Art like that might sit better in more traditional or eclectic interiors.

The color of the frame will be another factor. For a more restful look, you’ll want to try and keep your frame colors all the same or similar. And again, if you’re going eclectic, then mix as much as you like!

Some parting words about how to hang artwork!

So if you’ve been living in a home with empty walls because you’ve been afraid of hanging your pictures wrong, I say go for it! What hangs on your walls is honestly a huge part of what gives life and character to your home. It’s way worse to have an empty wall rather than an incorrectly hung picture. You can always fix the way your art is hung, so just go for it! 💙