How to Hang Wall Art on Stairs

Featured Pro: Carter Oosterhouse
Category: Home Décor
Time: 3:03


CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Hey, I’m Carter Oosterhouse with another great GMC Trade Secret.

Now, today I’m going to show you the best way to hang art along a staircase. Come on.

Now, the walls of a staircase can usually present a unique challenge to hanging wall art. You might not be so sure on how high, how wide the art should be, or how many pieces, for that matter.

Now, this just doesn’t really work for me, because they’re all on the same plane, so this picture ends up being really high and the far picture ends up being really low. I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m going to show you the best way to do it.

The first thing you want to do is measure the full length of the wall. Now, in this case we have a railing right up top. I’m going to measure to the end of that, which is about 100 inches. So I will get my halfway point, which is 50 inches.

All right, so now that I have my center mark, I want to get my height. And a good rule of thumb is to generally have your picture hang about 60 inches, or the center of the picture hang at about 60 inches. Now, the pictures that I’m using are 12 inches high, so I’m actually going to go six inches higher than that because the hook on the back of the picture is at the top of it.

All right. So now that I have my height and my center point, I’m going to take this black cardboard and I’m going to use this, so that way I don’t put a bunch of holes in the wall. And this will just give me a good visualization of what the picture will look like when it’s up. I simply place that right in the center.

All right. So this is what my middle picture will look like when it’s up. And I’m going to hang three pictures. So now what I want to do is find my center point from here to the end of the wall. Then I’ll find my height, which is generally about 60 inches. Perfect. Now I’m able to get a good visualization of what the pictures are going to look like before I put a bunch of holes in the wall.

But the next thing I want to do is make sure that the spacing between here and here is the same, and pretty much the height or the lines work with one another. Five inches and four inches. So I’ll move this one over and I’ll move that one out a little bit.

All right. This spacing looks fantastic. So the next thing to do is just get the hangers, put them into the wall, and hang the pictures. All right, so I’ll use my torpedo level just to make sure. Perfect. Look at that. All the pictures are hung up nice and neat.

So the key points are just stagger your pictures. Don’t keep them on the same plane. Have enough spacing in between them. Start from the middle one. Don’t be afraid to try this at home.

I’m Carter Oosterhouse, and this is your GMC Trade Secret.