Ways to Hang Multiple Picture Groupings Behind a Couch

Center Line

• The sofa, the base of your display, becomes part of the overall configuration of the art and furniture. Make the bottom of your picture grouping no less than 10 inches above the top of the sofa. "Eyeball" -- look at it directly and carefully -- the wall space, your pieces and their height and width. Determine a center line above the sofa to serve as the grouping’s baseline when hanging. Center all your artwork on this line. Use painter’s tape and a laser beam to mark a level line. When measuring, don’t stretch to the ceiling if it’s high. Empty space above your collage brings the eye down to the pictures.

Focal Point

• Determine which of your pictures is the focal point -- in color, theme or even the frame, as it becomes the center of your grouping. If all are of equal size and color, the group becomes the focal point. Using the floor as your easel, lay the focal point equidistant above and below your center line.

Themes

• Create unity on the wall above your sofa, even if it means changing out the frames and matting so they’re consistent. This is the easiest way to unite diverse themes. Avoid a jumble of sizes and shapes by framing all the pieces the same size and by using the matting to format each picture.

Clustering

• The most difficult task in arranging a cluster of pictures is organizing the different sizes, themes and colors. Your measurements are taken from the frame, not the picture itself. Using your center line as a guide, lay out the rest of your grouping above and below the line, maintaining at least 2 to 5 inches between each picture, but using consistency in your spacing. If you’re hanging two pictures vertically next to your focal point, the empty space between the two lands on your center line.

Width

• The visual symmetry of your hanging collection must include the sofa. Maintain balance in your picture grouping by not exceeding the sofa’s width. The left and right sides of the grouping are hung the same distance from the left and right sides of the sofa. The entire cluster is measured as a whole and placed on the wall as such. A base measure is to keep it all within 2/3 of the width of the sofa.