Ann Moore-Spencer

I got an e-mail from a read­er who ex­pressed ex­treme frus­tra­tion with the task of dec­o­rat­ing her walls with art. In­grid has re­cent­ly moved from a larg­er, clut­tered home to a small­er con­do­mini­um. In­grid finds that wher­ev­er she hangs the art and in what­ev­er con­fig­u­ra­tion-they just do not look and feel right. She claimed that her art looked like they were "scat­tered" on the walls. When I ques­tioned In­grid, I found that she had many small framed pho­tos and oth­er art­work, a few larg­er pieces and a few wrought-iron wall hang­ings of var­ied sizes. In­grid had too many pieces for the space. If you have been read­ing this col­umn for a while, you will recog­nise that I pre­fer less clut­ter; few­er and larg­er pieces. This holds true for dec­o­rat­ing your walls. Ed­it your col­lec­tion. Study the pieces and se­lect those that fit best in the colour scheme and style of the space. If your se­lec­tion has many small­er pieces, it would be nec­es­sary to group the art so that the pieces look like a unit. If the colour of the fram­ing does not co-or­di­nate well with the space and/or the oth­er frames, it may be nec­es­sary to re­frame pho­tos with sim­i­lar frames.

Try to cre­ate an in­ter­est­ing vi­gnette. Use frames and mats of vary­ing size and shapes, but com­ple­ment each oth­er.

You will al­so need to plan the group­ing. Use your floor to plan the lay­out of the pieces. Al­ter­nate­ly, cut pa­per the size of the pieces and use painter's tape to test the po­si­tion of the pieces on the wall. Move the pieces around un­til your arrange­ment is vi­su­al­ly bal­anced. If achiev­ing bal­ance is dif­fi­cult, small pieces can be made larg­er by plac­ing the art be­hind larg­er mat­ting and re­fram­ing it. Al­so pay at­ten­tion to the weight of the mould­ing used. If hang­ing art over fur­ni­ture, use nar­row with nar­row and wide with wide. For vi­su­al bal­ance match the shape of your art or art group­ing with the shape of the fur­ni­ture. Art over a so­fa should be wide, for ex­am­ple. Try to fill about two-thirds of the space be­tween the top of the fur­ni­ture and the ceil­ing. Po­si­tion the bot­tom of the art 5-10" above the fur­ni­ture.

Al­so try to bal­ance the art in the room. Don't place all the art on one wall. That wall will look heav­ier than the oth­ers. If you can­not place art on the op­po­site wall en­sure that the d&ea­cute;cor or struc­tur­al items have ad­e­quate vi­su­al weight. An­oth­er rule of thumb is to hang the art so that the cen­tre of the piece or group­ing is just above eye lev­el. The de­bate be­gins as to whether it is above eye lev­el when you are stand­ing or eye lev­el if you are sit­ting. I rec­om­mend that you use the stand­ing cen­tre in ar­eas such as pas­sages, foy­ers and hall­ways where you would be stand­ing for most of the time. For liv­ing and din­ing rooms, for in­stance, pre­fer the sit­ting cen­tre. As a gen­er­al guide­line, align the cen­tre of the piece or group­ing at about 58". This works best for larg­er pieces, though. Think about it. Small­er pieces will float in the mid­dle of the wall and break the rule guid­ing po­si­tion over the fur­ni­ture, fill up too lit­tle space and float in the cen­tre of the wall. A laser lev­el is a handy tool that can in­crease your suc­cess in lay­ing out and lev­el­ling your art on your wall. But the best am­mu­ni­tion is to plan, plan, plan.

Ann Moore-Spencer

Be­yond Drap­ery Lim­it­ed

Phone: 868-678-3414

E-mail: be­yond­drap­ery@tstt.net.tt

Web site: www.be­yond­drap­ery.com

Blog: www.be­yond­drap­ery.com/blog/