Hanging a painting at the right height

Most paintings at home hang too high. Galleries use one simple rule to fix that.

The 57 inch rule

Hang the painting so its center sits 57 inches from the floor. That is about eye level for most people, and it makes a room feel calmer straight away.

Over furniture

Over a sofa, a bed or a sideboard, forget the rule and leave 8 to 10 inches between the top of the furniture and the bottom of the frame. The painting and the furniture should read as one group.

How wide

A painting over a sofa looks best at about two thirds of the sofa's width. The "On a wall" view on each painting's page shows you how a size sits above an 84 inch sofa.