The Art of Wall Décor for Living in or Selling Your Home

As a home staging and design company, we spend much of our time in other people’s homes, and have quite possibly heard EVERY reason that you could think of for not having artwork on the walls, from struggling to find the perfect piece, to not wanting to put holes in the wall, or perhaps that you simply feel that the room looks great, and does not need any wall décor to bring it together. Empty, bare walls are filled with possibility and can be the blank canvas needed to create a focal point within a room.  When it comes to selling your home especially, wall décor is considered a critical piece to the puzzle, and a room simply is not finished without it.

Staging a home for sale is like getting dressed up for a special occasion. It’s about putting the right pieces together, down to the final touch, be it a scarf, a tie, jewellery, or the perfect shoes. When it comes to selling your home, artwork is that finishing touch that adds personality, colour, and interest to a room. It can also enhance flow from room to room within your home, creating both continuity and inviting spaces.

A standard principle of home staging and design is to identify what the focal point in the room will be; the item that will immediately connect with the viewer’s eye and draw them into the space.  Wall décor comes in many sizes, shapes and styles.  Whether a piece of framed art, an unframed canvas, a metal sculpture, or a mirror, wall decór can be used to pull a room together and make it feel complete.

Style

The first step to choosing wall décor is to ensure that it fits into the decorating style within the home. When selling a home, the home and its prospective buyer demographic will often dictate the final artwork selections. For the purposes of home staging, avoid mismatched frames, styles, or colours, as this can cause an unnecessary distraction to buyers. You may already have artwork pieces that can work well for selling, but evaluate each piece carefully, and remove any that are too personal or specific to your own style. The perfect piece for you may not be the right one for staging a home. When done properly, artwork in a home for sale can help bring out the home’s best features and create a positive, inviting vibe for potential buyers as they tour the property.

When selecting wall décor for living, while it is still important to ensure that you work with the overall style of the home, you will also want to choose pieces that will make you feel happy when you look at them.  Wall décor does not need to be expensive or valuable to provide happiness, however, your choice should also provide cohesion to the overall look within the room and your home overall.  Wall décor can also provide a solution to common issues.  For example, mirrors are a great way to bring some light into a darker space.  Because mirrors reflect light, a mirror can be used to help the space feel brighter

Scale

A common reason for artwork to look “out of place” in a room is due to incorrect scale. The scale of wall décor in relation to the space where it is being hung is critical.  Otherwise, it can create a distraction, essentially the opposite effect of what you are trying to achieve.  Wall décor that is too small can become dwarfed by items around it while wall décor that is too big will look overpowering.  As a rule of thumb, wall décor should be two-thirds the width of what it is hanging above.  For example, the wall décor hanging above a six-foot sofa should measure approximately four feet wide to create a sense of balance and harmony.  Remember that you can combine smaller pieces that work together, arranging them to fill the space that one piece of wall décor would have covered.

Height

The height that wall décor is hung is important in creating a cohesive look.  One common tendency is to hang wall décor too high.  The centre of the wall décor should be approximately 60 inches from the ground.  However, when hanging wall décor above a piece of furniture, it should be only 6-9 inches above the furniture.  Hanging multiple pieces of wall décor in a space that includes several windows and doorways can be challenging, as these architectural elements will play into the overall view of the space. In the case of competing wall openings and wall décor, simply align to the middle of each piece.

Spacing

While wall décor is a great way to add interest and character to your home, too many pieces and over-crowding can detract from their intended purpose.  Unless pieces are connected by size and/or subject matter (or you have created a grouping in place of a larger piece as outlined earlier), it's best to spread the pieces throughout the room. When you do find yourself hanging a grouping of pieces that are connected, space them out approximately 2-4" between them, to a maximum of 6” apart.  When in doubt, please a post-it note on each corner where the artwork should lay or use brown kraft paper to cut out the shape of your wall décor and tape to the wall using Painter’s Tape before marking your nail.  Both these approaches can provide you with a good sense of how the piece will look on the wall before you hang it, or for that matter before you buy it.

Don’t let the blank walls in your home intimidate you.  Use wall décor to transform your space today, and bring happiness to you and your guests for years to come!

For more great artwork tips, check out these previous blogs from Beyond The Stage Homes:

Displaying Your Artwork - BTSH Around The House Tip of the Week 

How To Hang Artwork Like the Pros!