When getting a house ready to sell, one of the key things me and my staging team will look at is the placement of art and pictures. What we notice quickly, and what a buyer will notice, is when a picture hasn't been hung correctly. Art helps set the tone in a room, which is especially important when selling your home, so you want it to complement the space instead of distracting from it. Here's 6 tips to help combat the most common misplacements we see:
1. Hang a picture so that the centre is at eye level. 60 inches from the ground will usually get you in range of this. Very important if you're only hanging a single piece. A sore neck shouldn't result from looking up at your art.
2. Get the proportions right. You want to make sure the art work is appropriate for the size of the wall. A small piece on a big wall (unless you're an art gallery), is going to look odd, and if it's to big for the wall, it's going to look odd.
3. Select the right scale. This is especially important when you're hanging art above a sofa or bed. A good rule of thumb is that the piece should be about 2/3rds the length of the of the furniture it's going above. If you're using multiple pieces, include the length of each frame and space between them to figure this out.
4. Use proper picture hooks. Screws and bolts really should only be used for keeping the house together, not hanging a regular picture. The holes left from picture hanging hardware are so much easier to repair when you decide to move things around.
5. If you're hanging a row of pictures along the same line, use a level, or better yet a laser level, and mark your nail holes accordingly. To help determine spacing and positioning there's a couple of online calculators for this and even an App, Hang-a-pic (I haven't used it but it looks cool) www.datawranglers.com/tools/wallhanging.php www.pictureframe.com.au/picture-frames-wall-hanging-calculator.html (this one uses meters so get your conversion calculator out).
6. Get an extra set of eyes. Having someone hold a picture in place before sinking a nail into the wall makes it so much easier to determine the right positioning, height etc. with out leaving a trail of holes.
Bonus Tip: Make yourself a picture hanger. You can buy these in the store, but personally I think a homemade one is better. Take a flat piece of wood similar in shape and size to those old wooden rulers. Drive a nail through it about half an inch from the bottom so that a small part of the nail is coming out of the back. Voila, you have a picture hanger. Place it against the wall with your picture hanging on the nail and once you've found the right place, press against the frame and the nail will make a small hole where the nail for your picture hook needs to go. Check out this link for visual instructions on how to make one http://celebrateeverydaywithme.com/the-best-ever-picture-hanging-tip/
