Arrangement of pictures on walls

How are your's arranged? We arguing gently about groupings of small, larger ones as focal points, not having photos mixed with paintings. Our collection of things is "too many". We've all taken lessons and thus have paintings by the two of us, by our children, and some professionals: examples. Plus photos.

What is your arrangement of pictures? I am going to lose the arguments or course.
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Comments

  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    My boyfriend and I moved in together in October. Everything is unpacked and put away but the pictures, which are all propped up against the walls in various places where they might or might not eventually be hung. He has multiple framed photos of Mickey Mantle. I'm a huge baseball fan, but one photo of The Mick seems sufficient to me.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    I like the tops of pictures to all be the same height off the floor
  • Yikes.

    We have a big collection of family pictures in the living room on both walls, arranged in groupings with a similar amount of white space between all the elements. So, something like this: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b2/aa/b7/b2aab71d55241cbbe9c2305b02362eb7.jpg

    We don't really care about frames being all the same, or any such thing. But I don't want a single straight line all the way across either the top or the bottom--the very formal rigid nature of that would tend to stress me out. Not to mention the difficulty involved in obtaining the effect, with nothing out of line.
  • Telford wrote: »
    I like the tops of pictures to all be the same height off the floor

    At my wife's insistence, ours are done the other way round. It's the bottom edges that are all neatly aligned.
  • Former picture framer conservator and gallerist here.

    The easiest way to see your grouping without having to go to the trouble of putting nails in the wall is to lay it out on the floor first.

    Look at the space you're working within. The visual lines that create the boundaries of the eyeline - they're not always the most logical. Like the edge of the curtain, not the edge of the window behind it, delineates the boundary of the space.

    Group odd numbers together. Avoid even numbers and "tombstoning" - that marching effect that goes with straight lines unless you're working with obvious diptychs and triptychs.

    It's OK to group photos and paintings - whatever you think works best according to theme shape and or color, there are no rules about that. Try to think about how the eye flows around the room and transition the pieces and grouping to create a kind of visual narrative.

    I love arranging artwork on walls it's so much fun to pull someone's collection together into a cohesive narrative.

    AFF
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    I used to have lots of pictures up -- mainly of family. Also other pictures that appealed to me, that I garnered from various sources.

    Larger ones of similar size were all hung equidistant from the ceiling. Smaller ones were hung in groups that would more or less take up the same space that a single larger one would take.

    Got tired of cleaning them all, so now only my favorites remain. No more than one or two on each wall in each room.

    I am a stickler for absolutely straight pictures. I use a carpenter's level to check them. If I see a picture that seems even a millimeter off -- even in public places -- I have an irresistible urge to straighten them.
  • We had ours (all painting no photos) up one side of a doorway to a hall, and across the top of the door. We had two long thin horizontal paintings so going across the top of the door worked out very well. My husband and both of our children are professional artists, but we also have other paintings we have acquired over the years. We have a painting or two in other rooms as well. I also have some I change out with the seasons. I do have some sculptures on bookcases and on the porch as well. Not much just a few favorites.
  • edited February 25
    We've moved house after 32 years. Big shack to smaller shack. This one has 10 foot ceilings so should display the art well, except we've probably too many. We've well over 200 pieces which did display in old shack which is one-third larger than this one.

    One of my favourites is in the style of this Hurley and we have a Franz Kienmeyer and a Hicks much like this one, and a Grandmaison pastel of my mother as a young child (he was from Ottawa, my mother said he did pictures of most of her Rockcliffe friends too).

    I like @A Feminine Force's plan. I will see if we can agree to try this.
  • In the sitting room we have alcoves on either side of the (vast) chimney breast so each has one "good" picture, same height and size of frame. The opposite wall has a grouping of pictures, large oil in the centre, much small on either side, bottom edges the same. The dining room has a collection of architectural prints, photographs are on the landing.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I agree with @A Feminine Force that you want to go for subtle correspondences.

    On the wall opposite there are 4 pictures. The 2 Japanese prints are side by side, but offset. The top of the large painting on the end aligns with the top of higher print. The smaller painting in the middle hovers between that line and the top of the lower print, so there is a stepped arrangement.

    Besides the spacing there is the harmony or contrast of the subject. So the prints are obviously a pair, featuring figures. The paintings are different media, frames and mounts, but both landscapes - Botanic Gardens and rural Perthshire - very different but containing visual 'matches' nevertheless.
  • I'm afraid I just tend to stick a nail in wherever I think I would like to see the picture....
  • As long as the pictures are On The Wall, rather than cluttering a surface, I’m ok with most choices.

  • No family photos, all kinds of original art, prints, postcards, not neatly arranged, what a horror.
  • We had ours (all painting no photos) up one side of a doorway to a hall, and across the top of the door. We had two long thin horizontal paintings so going across the top of the door worked out very well. My husband and both of our children are professional artists, but we also have other paintings we have acquired over the years. We have a painting or two in other rooms as well. I also have some I change out with the seasons. I do have some sculptures on bookcases and on the porch as well. Not much just a few favorites.

    We also don't have any photos up but do have paintings by friends and relatives; a large one on the chimney breast in the lounge and on the only spare wall in the kitchen, with a couple of smaller ones dotted around the lounge and hall. The hallway also have 3 antique samplers (one Georgian) arrange in a line. We have a couple of old maps that are awaiting framing to hang in the lounge.
    We have been known to occasionally borrow oil paintings from a relative, to see what works in a newly decorated room
  • We don’t have many pictures on the walls as we have too many doorways and too many bookcases.
    In the living room, we have a framed aerial photo of the Lands End peninsula. We also have two Bob Saunders limited edition prints - one was my 21st birthday present from my parents, the other was my 23rd birthday present.
    In the front room, which is now our bedroom, we have a framed satellite photo of the whole of Cornwall.
    We also have lots of photos and special cards on the bookshelves.
    In our previous house, we had a knock through, and the living room part had hessian wall weave on one wall. Our cat at the time thought this was wonderful, and climbed it and used it as a huge scratch post.
    We therefore had a lot of small framed pictures in quite an artistic arrangement, mainly to cover the scratched areas!
  • I've covered walls with a large collection of small cards or pictures before now - the bare straight hallway in a student flat, which was under the stairs and had two doors out of it, the front at one end and the door to the flat on one side, slightly better arranged big pictures in other places. I have some antique bicycle posters replicas in the hall as a set, but there are 6 doors out of that hall so they are scattered around and some are landscape, some portrait.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Yikes.

    We have a big collection of family pictures in the living room on both walls, arranged in groupings with a similar amount of white space between all the elements. So, something like this: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b2/aa/b7/b2aab71d55241cbbe9c2305b02362eb7.jpg

    We don't really care about frames being all the same, or any such thing. But I don't want a single straight line all the way across either the top or the bottom--the very formal rigid nature of that would tend to stress me out. Not to mention the difficulty involved in obtaining the effect, with nothing out of line.

    No family pictures on the walls, but agree about not lining paintings up in a single straight line. And in putting paintings where they fit, we're talking simply of fit physically, not thematically or any other arrangement. So one wall of the dining room has a decent sized mirror, with a smaller picture next to it because it fits into that space.

  • Most of the pictures on our walls are prints bought on holidays to remind us of places visited. Grouped in clusters with similar colours/themes and similar frame colours/style (unlikely to have a picture with a heavy dark coloured frame next to others with simple light wood or white frames). Straight lines definitely discouraged (except for a pair of matching prints from Venice) which makes it easier to add others to the grouping from time to time...our groupings tend to grow organically!


  • MarthaMartha Shipmate
    We mostly have single pictures wherever there's a good space (or in some cases, wherever there was a nail when we moved in, we hung a picture on it "for now" and it's still there 7 years later).

    My oldest son spent a few days in lockdown 1 covering his bedroom wall with pictures of cars from a magazine, all taped on. Good thing we hadn't got round to repainting his room yet!
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited February 25
    What is your arrangement of pictures? I am going to lose the arguments or course.

    Like you, we have too many pictures (or perhaps not enough walls).

    We have:

    A couple of big pictures, where the picture takes up a significant part of the wall, and is on the wall by itself.

    Some pictures side-by-side at the same height (only works if the pictures and frames match).

    Some in a cluster.

    Some vertically one above the other, when they're in a narrow vertical space (eg. the space between windows).

    Plus a few photos in frames hanging around on shelves etc.

    I think if the photos and paintings were all portraits, I'd be happy to cluster them. I don't think I'd group a portrait with a landscape photo, though, or with something abstract.
  • balaambalaam Shipmate
    Telford wrote: »
    I like the tops of pictures to all be the same height off the floor

    I prefer the bottom edge to be aligned, but I'm not bothered about pictures being a little off square. Is being bothered about alignment by height but not square unusual?
  • balaambalaam Shipmate
    Photographs hang on the wall with the windows in so there is no direct sunlight to fade them.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited February 25
    I have six picture frames , on two shelves. I have lots of photos for them and change them every week. 😁
  • Our walls are just wonky enough that nothing ever looks quite straight, you get used to it as if you try to straighten stuff it just drives you flying mammal poo.
  • I'll be moving in May to a place with less wall space, so I'm appreciating all of these ideas. I've actually saved the lay-out that Lamb Chopped posted, as I like that look (and it's a good way to show lots of pictures on one wall). Thanks, everyone!
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Priscilla wrote: »
    too many bookcases.
    I do not understand these words.

  • What are they on about, Dafyd, I can't seem to get my head round it?
  • There are two different situations that can be erroneously described as "too many bookcases".

    One is the unfortunate case of having an insufficient number of books. This is theoretically possible, but I don't think I've encountered it in person.

    The second is rather more accurately described as "not enough walls" - to which I'd reply that an entire wall lined with fitted bookshelves has a significant book-storing capacity, and can also be treated as a wall for many purposes.

    Unfortunately for the present discussion, none of those purposes is hanging pictures. Whilst you can certainly stand photo frames on bookshelves (if you've got extra space, or deep shelves where the photos stand in front of some books), it looks very odd indeed to hang pictures from bookshelves.

    Both insufficient space for bookshelves and insufficient space for pictures are commonly encountered when moving to a smaller home (as our shipmate @NOprophet_NØprofit reports having recently done).
  • edited February 25
    [tangent]
    We could also talk pianos. Quite like this one. Signed in pencil by the maker of the soundboard, dated 10 May 1911. Original ivory keys and ebony sharps. Not as exact as a Yamaha, but it has a richness and colour of tone that I can hear in an instant when it is played. And not plastic keys which are not the thing for my sweaty hands.

    Additional notes:
    -Do not have new flooring put in without first measuring the piano.
    -There is a contrivance called a "piano tilter" which can get the piano to the stairway angle. If they use it, k-ching, extra charge.
    -Piano movers know geo-trig and all the angles they must navigate.
    -I had no idea the value of it today. It scared me. Lots.
    [/tangent]
  • Anyone with OCD would go crazy in my house. Pictures not the same height. Clocks that are off-center. We have more window space than wall space, though.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited February 25
    Our piano looks like that! It was a free gift from the local Baptists, who were unloading musical instruments (please please PLEASE take this, and you want the organ, too?) and my son learned to play on it. It's an 1890s Steinway. Lovely tone, original ivory, needs a complete refinish since the wee ones at the church took markers to it...
  • One of the big advantages of our little house - picture rails in all downstairs rooms except the kitchen. No nails to bang in and picture heights can be tweaked very easily. With a family of artists and photographers we need all the help we can get!
  • I have a project for this year, which is to go through a load of family photographs from my late papa, make a selection and get rid of those I don't want. One that may make it's way into a frame is a huge photograph of my father wifh his parents, grandparents, some aunts, uncles and cousins - about 40 of them in all. Every male under c13 is wearing a sailor suit and the girls all look as if plucked from a shoot of The Railway Children!
  • I have a poster of Picasso's Blue Nude (which I drymounted and cropped and put in a nice, chunky wooden frame when I worked in a picture framing shop 30ish years ago) that I prefer to hang lower than you'd expect. It's such an introspective piece, and I feel it needs to be at and below eye-level, almost like a mirror would be.

    One interesting dynamic is how high art is placed. It really makes a difference with, say, statuary and sculptures in museums and in churches. In a museum, for example, Buddha is placed where you're looking (slightly down) at him; in a temple, he'd be up higher and looking (down) at you. Some of that dynamic spills over into framed artwork, I think, but it's not quite the same. A framed piece hung high up does feel a little more distant, but you can see the whole thing, whereas a statue or sculpture set up high means you can't quite see it all, at least not from the angles you want to see it from. I used to work at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and they have a large, very stylized statue of St. Francis (by Beniamino Bufano - seen here). He looks like he's looking down at the floor a bit, as if he's shy. When I was in St. Mary's Square in Chinatown, I saw a sculpture of Sun Yat Sen by the same artist, and he was on a pedestal. His gaze was similar to that of St. Francis, but it actually met the viewer's gaze thanks to the pedestal. I think several other statues of his are on higher pedestals like that, too. (I used to call that statue at GC "Creepy St Francis.")

    Well, I've wandered quite a ways from hanging pictures (all the way to San Francisco, in fact!) but my point is supposed to be that another consideration is how you feel the image in the frame relates to the viewer, to the body, and how people may interact with it (and whether you want them to).
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    We could also talk pianos. Quite like this one.
    A beautiful instrument!
    Our piano looks like that . . . . It's an 1890s Steinway. Lovely tone, original ivory, needs a complete refinish since the wee ones at the church took markers to it...
    Ouch! That's no way to treat a Steinway.
    I know a fine way
    To treat a Steinway.
    I love to run my fingers over the keys,
    The ivories.
    Thank you, Irving Berlin!
  • heh. The damage is wholly cosmetic, and is waiting for a day when we have extra money (yeah, I know). But there are a few internal issues with parts that are nearly worn out--120 years, you know!--and those will eventually become an issue.
  • churchgeek wrote: »

    (I used to call that statue at GC "Creepy St Francis.")
    I remember that statue when it was down by the wharf before it was moved to Grace. I also called it, "Creepy St. Francis." Several years ago my husband was with me when we discovered it at the cathedral and Mr. Image remarked, "Oh look they now have your Creepy St. Francis. " I still think the name fits.

  • (Piano tangent) Lord P got left his great grandmother’s piano, which was given to her as a wedding present from the congregation of St. Mary’s, Radcliffe, Bristol, where she was the organist.
    When it was moved to his house, he had a piano tuner in who reckoned that pianos have a limited life because of the way they are constructed. (/piano tangent)
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    I have just changed mine for this week - here is a photo. The modern version of picture rails. 🙂

    https://photos.app.goo.gl/dtibfaDvMxvvihp99
  • Since decluttering a couple of years ago, I now really like bare walls - so my few remaining pix are one-on-a-wall, with a lot of walls having no paintings. On the other hand I have a desktop computer, and a ton of pictures and photographs carefully organised in various files on my computer. I often look at them when listening to podcasts, or while holding forever on the phone to my gas company or whatever. I also have online galleries I've organised at flickr. All of these things give me great pleasure. 98% of my picture pleasure is now via my computer.

    eg one of my galleries of horse pix..
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/hills_alive/galleries/72157645890127400/

  • @Boogie Lovely! And such a good idea to keep changing them. It's so easy for images to become dead to us if we see them all the time.
  • Our collection of original pieces largely resides in the living room, with almost every wall space occupied ranging from large modern works to miniatures. No two pieces are parallel, but the arrangement works. Our small collection of Aboriginal art is in the master bedroom, while the other bedrooms and main dining room have a mixture of prints and some originals. The small dining room houses my collection of railway-themed collectible plates along with a couple of miniatures. The front hall holds the gallery of family photos. We sponsor an acquisitive section in the local art show, so we are now fast running out of space.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    The house we had in St. John's was a nightmare for hanging pictures: the walls were so skew-whiff that if the horizontals were right, the verticals would be wrong.

    As a general rule, I'd put family photographs on shelves or tables rather than on the wall, and leave the walls for paintings and prints.
  • Kind-of in-reaction to something about my own upbringing, I thought I'd make it a given that I too was proud of my kids 'art' by drawing-pinning it to a wall whenever they did anything they were proud of. It's now slightly-3D wallpaper over an entire wall; now and then I still add to it, even though they're much too old. They won't let me change it, so it seems to have meant something.
  • PuzzlerPuzzler Shipmate
    I have been thinking for a while now that the wall behind me when I am on Zoom could do with an additional picture. I like the fact that it is almost bare, but it needs something. (This is the small spare bedroom, where I have had a desk, shelves and a storage cupboard constructed, whilst keeping the single bed.) There is nothing around the house that I want to move, and I can’t go looking for anything just yet, so it will stay almost bare for now. A haven of peace in our very cluttered home, but I am open to ideas.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    Piglet wrote: »
    The house we had in St. John's was a nightmare for hanging pictures: the walls were so skew-whiff that if the horizontals were right, the verticals would be wrong.

    As a general rule, I'd put family photographs on shelves or tables rather than on the wall, and leave the walls for paintings and prints.

    That is every house in downtown/central St. John's, including ours! My dad, who grew up on Prince of Wales St in the 1940s, says they used to roll cans down the kitchen floor to see which would get to the wall first.
  • Sounds like my sitting room. Next on the list when I've some spare cash is to get that sorted out. The big question is whether to raise the sagging floor so the whole room has a ceiling height of just 6'2" or to lower the non-sagging side so we get 6'8" or so.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    That might depend on the inhabitants' height (or lack thereof). If you're pushing 6', do you really only want a couple of inches' clearance?
  • One that may make it's way into a frame is a huge photograph of my father wifh his parents, grandparents, some aunts, uncles and cousins - about 40 of them in all. Every male under c13 is wearing a sailor suit and the girls all look as if plucked from a shoot of The Railway Children!

    This reminds me of a piece of good advice that I was given quite some time ago.

    Keep a record of who the people in photos are. If you're an elderly relative (and so know who all the people are), write it down. If you're a younger relative, pester your elderly relatives to identify the people in the photos. Otherwise all the people who remember die, and what you're left with is a "this might be my great grandfather, or maybe his brother, or maybe his uncle."
  • TheOrganistTheOrganist Shipmate
    I'd second that. I was very lucky that one of Papa's cousins helped him to go through photographs back in the 1990s. A trained archivist, she did a magnificent job and every photograph has a typed list of names and how they are related. She also was pretty ruthless at getting rid of photographs without any identifiable people or places. Would that a similar person was in Mama's family 😧
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