Decorating To Set Off Your Architecture

Your Staircase

The places that you hang your artwork and the method you use for displaying it are often established largely by the architecture you have in your house. For instance, if you have a narrow winding staircase you might place a tall vertical group of picture frames on the wall that goes from one floor up to the next. A great thing for this space might be about six botanicals framed and hung up in sets of two, or maybe three black and white pictures hung vertically over one another in attractive black picture frames.

An Exquisite Cluster

One of the most striking and lovely ways to display fine pieces of art is to group them together in six matching frames. You do not have to invest a lot of money to obtain nice pictures; even the most simple flower prints or pictures taken out of garden publications can be really elegant when you frame them correctly. You may even frame pressed flowers or dried leaves. Affordable black or natural wood picture frames can look great when hung up in two rows of three for a horizontal grouping, or three rows of two to make a vertical grouping.

Having Fun with Shapes

Say you have a large wall that you think is just ideal for a large, tall piece of art, but you only seem to have horizontal pieces. If you have three horizontal pieces that are the same size, or almost the exact same size, then just hang them up on the wall, one on top of another with about three inches of space in between each frame. Although these frames don’t need to be just the same, it might look better if they were the same finish at the minimum.

Art That is Alive

This could be news to you, but in a designers point of view windows are "living art." And not just windows, but also French doors and also sliding glass doors. Occasionally the French doors in a room, a glass door, a row of large windows, or one big picture window can turn out to be the main focus of a certain room. That is why you will want to be sure that one of your large walls is left without art so that the eyes of the viewer will not be bewildered by too many places to focus on. When you do this the room will also feel more peaceful. If your room features plenty of doors and windows then you may want to only hang one group of little frames or one big frame on a wall and then don’t hang anything on any of the other walls.

Windows as Art

As stated above, you should avoid hanging artwork directly next to a window, but really most importantly this is the rule if you have a stained glass window. You do not want artwork along with a stained glass window to compete for attention.

Viewpoint

If you’re hanging artwork (or a mirror) above a table or dresser that sits next to a bigger piece of furniture such as an armoire, choose a piece of art that is almost as tall as the table or dresser. Doing so will help to give balance to the furniture layout and help avoid the smaller pieces of furniture from feeling dwarfed by the bigger furniture piece.

So try out some of these hints and you may be amazed by the beautiful difference you notice right away.