Not much could seem simpler when it comes to interior decorating than displaying pictures on the wall. That’s the problem with so many things that seem simple: they seem simple because you aren’t really giving the matter any new thought. When it comes to displaying pictures on the walls of your home, you are likely just repeating the same lack of imagination that you’ve seen time and time again. It is your destiny to be a revolutionary in the little niche of interior decorating.
Hang ‘Em High
The conventional wisdom in exhibiting pictures on the wall is that you should hang them at eye level. The result is all too often a rather mundane and boring arrangement. Hanging pictures above eye level can create a rather disconcerting sense of dislocation if you don’t fill in the gap where people naturally expect the pictures to be. An easy way to avoid this sense of dislocation while at the same time lending the pictures more drama is to install a fixture on that area of the wall that throws lighting onto the pictures. Another way to get past the gap below is the create a dynamic in which the pictures that are hung above eye level naturally leads the viewer’s vision upward to decorative wallpaper bordering affixed at the intersection of wall and ceiling.
Hand Drawn Frames
You’ve got some really nice pictures to hang on the wall, but you just can’t find any frames that do it for you? Why depend on what mass manufacturing deems suitable for a picture frame? Add the ultimate in personalized and customized framing by doing away with them completely and drawing a frame directly on the wall. Drawing a large black outline would give a picture the look of cartoon animation. Ornate lines lend older pictures or those printed with a sepia tinge a bit of class. Consider cutting up the printed image to create a less symmetrical border and apply this lack of classical lines to your hand-drawn framing.
Gaps
When hanging framed pictures on a wall, you can take advantage of the natural tendency of the human eye to fill in blanks. Arrange a set of framed pictures on the wall in a geometric pattern such as a square or rectangle, but create gaps in the placement. For instance, in a square arrangement of nine small frame arranged in a tic-tac-toe layout, leave one of the diagonal rows completely empty and then add a gap either side of the middle space. The result will technically be an asymmetrical arrangement, but the eye will fill in the blanks to create the impression of a square.
Reflected Glory
One of the most effective ways to ensure that people take notice of your pictures is to appeal to their vanity. Choose a selection of smaller pictures to arrange around a larger mirror. The mirror becomes a deceptive focal point of the wall that is actually there to entice visitors to take notice of the surrounding pictures when they give in to their natural vanity and check out their reflection in the mirror.
Small Walls
Almost every home features either a full wall that offers limited decorating area or a small section of wall left uncovered by a large furnishing like a bookshelf. The problem here is that the uncovered space on the wall offers such limited real estate that finding an effective way to use it can be frustrating. The solution may be to use as much as that wall area as possible as a canvas for displaying pictures. Plastering the wall with a host of small framed pictures is one idea. Blowing up a favorite image to mural-size is another. The key is to look at the area as a huge canvas for exhibiting pictures rather than as a wall that is too small to work with.
