Hanging guide
How high should I hang a picture?
Centre the piece 145 cm (57 inches) from the floor. That is average standing eye height and the height galleries and museums hang to, which is why a room full of pictures at that line looks deliberate. Above a sofa or console the rule changes: leave 15-25 cm between the top of the furniture and the bottom of the frame, and let the centre land wherever that puts it.
Why 145 cm and not higher
Almost everyone hangs too high. The instinct is to centre art on the wall, but a wall is 240-270 cm tall and its centre is around 130 cm, above which people place things to fill the space. The eye does not read the wall, it reads the room, and in a room you are standing or sitting at roughly the same height everywhere.
Museums settled on this a long time ago. 145 cm to the centre puts the middle of the work at average standing eye height, so a piece reads comfortably whether you are walking past it or sitting across from it.
When furniture overrules the rule
Art above a sofa, bed, console or sideboard belongs to that furniture, not to the wall. The pair has to read as one object, which means the gap between them matters more than the absolute height.
| Furniture below | Gap to bottom of frame |
|---|---|
| Sofa | 15-25 cm |
| Console or sideboard | 15-20 cm |
| Bed headboard | 15-25 cm |
| Nothing below | centre at 145 cm |
A tall piece above a sofa will end up centred higher than 145 cm, and that is correct. The rule is a default for an empty wall, not a law.
The measurement people get wrong
The nail does not go where the top of the frame goes. Hanging wire sags when the weight is on it, typically 5-10 cm below the top of the frame. Hang the piece on a hook first, pull the wire taut with one finger, measure from the frame top down to the taut wire, and subtract that from your target. Skipping this hangs everything a hand's width too high.
Check it before you put a nail in
All of this is arithmetic you can do wrong at the cost of a hole in the wall. Murello renders the piece on a photograph of your actual wall at its real size, centred exactly where these rules put it, so you can see whether the numbers agree with your room before you commit.
Questions people also ask
Is 57 inches the same as 145 cm?
Close enough to be the same rule. 57 inches is 144.8 cm. Galleries in the US quote 57 or 58 inches and European ones quote 145 or 150 cm; the difference is smaller than the error in most people’s measuring.
Does the 145 cm rule apply to the top of the frame?
No, and this is the mistake that causes most crooked-looking walls. 145 cm is the CENTRE of the artwork. Measuring to the top hangs everything too high by half its own height.
How high above a sofa should art hang?
Leave 15-25 cm between the top of the sofa back and the bottom of the frame. Closer than 15 cm looks cramped; further than 25 cm and the two stop reading as a group and start looking like unrelated objects.
What if the ceiling is very high?
Keep 145 cm. The instinct is to hang higher to fill the wall, and it is wrong: eye height does not change with the ceiling. If the wall looks empty above, the answer is a bigger piece or a second row, not a higher one.
How do I hang art on a staircase?
Follow the slope. Measure 145 cm vertically from the tread directly below each piece, so the line of centres climbs at the same angle as the stairs.
Where should a picture go above a bed?
Same 15-25 cm gap above the headboard, and keep the piece narrower than the bed. A piece wider than the headboard makes the bed look undersized.