New Living Room Art

Well FINALLY after having our art prints for the living room for about 5 months, we got them all hung up! We have a big blank wall in the living room, the only spot the room has for art (other than the gallery wall of our wedding photos on the wall behind the sofa). I knew it needed to be large scale and I wanted something fairly neutral with black frames to pick up some contrast from other areas around the room. I love the depth that black creates!

Here is the listing photo of the house:

Here's the room last summer after we installed our builtins:

And here's the room TODAY:

In case you missed any of the previous posts about this room, here's our finished builtins, the DIY hearth stencil, and new rug.

 I found this art on Juniper Print Shop's website after scouring it, and right when I saw this I knew it was perfect. I love the modern yet whimsical feel I knew it'd bring to our more traditional space. Juniper Print Shop is one of my go-to's for client art because it's so affordable and you can even choose to print it yourself or have a professional print mailed to you (which is what we did in this case, since it was so large). The art in our dining room is also from JPS and LOVE it.

Large Frames:

Okay, let's talk about the frames. The great thing about JPS are their print sizes are compatible with Ikea frames. This is the Ribba frame in 24x36". I was worried the plexiglass was going to look super cheap, but I'm here to tell you, I'm SUPER happy with it and would use it again and even put it in a client's home. They're really quite easy to hang and very lightweight. While I prefer hanging art with a picture hanging wire and this doesn't have that, you could install them yourself, but otherwise what they came with worked just fine. 

 Just a note, the frames took TWO MONTHS to arrive to me because of Covid. But they are here and I am so happy. I thought for sure they were gonners ;)

 Hanging Height:

You want the center of your art to be about 58-61" from the ground up the wall. Mark this measurement on your wall before starting, then get the center of the art at this location by having one person hold it up, then a second person marking the top of the frame so that you know where the top will be. From there, measure down to the hanging hook to see how far down you need to put your nail in order for the height to be correct. I have a story about this on instagram highlights if you want a more in depth look at how we hang art!

Art Size & Placement: 

I'm so happy with the size and that I went with the larger one. I was debating back and forth between this size or one size smaller, but then I remember my golden rule: when in doubt, always go bigger. We centered them on this wall since nothing is along the wall; however, we would love to get a larger sectional sofa soon and if we do, the long part would sit along this back wall and we may have to rehang the art to be centered over the sofa depending on placement and length of the sofa. We'll see! 

General Tip: you want your wall art to take up about 1/3-2/3 the size of the wall OR 2/3 the size of whatever it is hanging over (in this case, it's not hanging over anything, but say there was a sofa along this wall-- you'd want to make sure it was about 2/3 the length of that).

 Doesn't art just totally finish off a space? Well, that and window treatments :)  Thanks for taking a peek! Other than our new sofa we hope to get in the coming year and a window bench seat for our bay window, the room is done!

xoxo


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