How to Hang Art

Featured Pro: Kristan Cunningham
Category: Home Décor
Time: 2:44


KRISTAN CUNNINGHAM: Hi, there. I’m Kristan Cunningham. Are you ready for your next GMC Trade Secret?

You know, one of the things that can take the longest time getting your home together is getting that art up on the wall, between the leveling and the measuring and the – oy, it can take forever. But I’ve got a couple of ideas for you that’ll make the process a bit easier.

One of them is to take the frames that you’ll be putting on the wall and measure them out on newspaper, craft paper. I’ve done it here on foam cork because it’s a little bit sturdier. Get yourself some painter’s tape, because it peels right off the wall and won’t damage it. And start playing.

I’ve got one guy here, right, and one guy – oh, I don’t know – here; one guy there. And so now, before putting any holes in the wall and making any mistakes, I can start to say, you know what, I don’t really like this guy here. Let’s put him here and not have to patch anything later. So this is a great way to start getting a visual sense of what something’s going to look like and make a really nice composition.

Now, notice that this entire arrangement is setting at about the middle third of this wall. That’s a good general rule of thumb. Five foot six inches is average height for the average person to line up with the eyes. And you want to look at art in about the middle, at eye line, just like you would in a gallery. And so if you ever need a good starting point to figure out about where your art should be, five foot six inches at the center line is a good rule of thumb.

Once you have it all laid out, let’s talk about how you actually hang it. I honestly can’t think of anything more infuriating than trying to get these little, itty, bitty, teeny nails into the wall with this hammer over your big, fat fingers. And I don’t think I have big, fat fingers until I’m trying to get a little teeny nail in the wall.

So my secret is to put the nail in a comb, a regular comb that you use on your hair, and hold the comb away from the hammer. There you go. And my fingers were not harmed in this whole process. And now I have a great place to hang this picture.

But now it’s all crooked. Waa, waa. The next most infuriating thing is when you spend all this time measuring and leveling and getting everything just right, and then you come home from work one day and all of your pictures are crooked. I’ve got a secret for that too.

These little bumper guys are a lifesaver because they’re skid-resistant, you know, like tupperware. So when you get these on, you’ve now basically got stoppers at the bottom of the frame. Those bumper feet grab onto the wall, keep everything from shifting around. And even better, it keeps your frame from scratching the wall.

I’m Kristan Cunningham, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret about how to hang art.