Style guides

How to size and hang art without a tape measure

The rules for hanging art are simple numbers. You can find all of them with things that are already in the flat.

The size: two thirds of the sofa, with a piece of string

Art above a sofa looks right at about two thirds of the sofa’s width (why two thirds).

1. Stretch a piece of string, a phone charger cable or a scarf along the back of the sofa, from arm to arm.
2. Fold it in three.
3. Two of the three parts is the width your print, or group of prints, should have.

If you would rather use a calculator: sofa width × 0.67. A 210 cm (83 in) sofa gives about 140 cm (55 in) of art.

The gap above the sofa: one sheet of A4

Leave 15 to 25 cm (6 to 10 in) between the sofa and the bottom of the frame. A sheet of A4 turned on its side is 21 cm tall, almost exactly the middle of that range: stand it on the sofa back and the bottom of the frame goes at the top edge of the paper. (US letter is 21.6 cm, 8.5 in: the same trick works.)

The height on an empty wall: five sheets of A4

On a wall without furniture, put the centre of the art about 145 cm (57 in) from the floor (how high to hang art). Five sheets of A4 laid end to end on their long side come to 148.5 cm, close enough to mark the centre with a pencil.

The middle of the wall: count your steps

Walk the wall from corner to corner, heel to toe, and count. Walk back half that number from either corner and you are at the middle. It is accurate to about half a shoe, which nobody will notice.

When it is worth borrowing a tape measure

For a gallery wall with many frames, or when the hook has to go through tiles or into a stud, measure properly. For one print over a sofa, the string and the paper are enough.