Check out these inspiring solutions we found on our journey through the archives:
FIRST ROW
• 1 Jessica's Room of Her Own. Hanging small prints on a series of clipboards is such a cute idea; it makes it easy to switch things out when you're wanting a new look.
• 2 Emily and Meeko's Sunny First Apartment. A bulletin board covered with souvenirs and trinkets can look messy, but displaying the same items in a shadowbox frame has the look of a nice collage.
• 3 Ariana and Andreas' Downey Street Tree House. I love the "one of these things is not like the other" look of this sweet grouping. It's a clever way to display a triptych with one mismatched piece.
• 4 Joan and Johann's Mission Maisonette. Displaying canvases lined up on a long shelf creates more depth and interest than a simple grouping hung directly on the wall.
• 5 Evan's Old-Timey Apartment and Studio Space. A clothesline provides a way to hang artwork neatly in a room with eaves and exposed beams.
SECOND ROW
• 6 Trish's North Portland Nest. Sometimes I forget that it's possible for artwork to look fabulous hanging below eye level, near the floor or even along the baseboards, especially in a room with high windows.
• 7 Melissa and Ryan's World of Color. Draw frames on a chalkboard wall for a temporary installation of prints or children's artwork.
• 8 Melinda and David's Unique and Artsy Home Revisited. Hanging a group of artwork above and around a flat-screen TV minimizes the impact of the TV on the wall.
• 9 Kelly Rae's Colorful Seattle Farmhouse. In lieu of the traditional large framed piece above the hearth, a deconstructed mantelpiece display features a small canvas with a large empty frame leaning behind it.
• 10 Kelly and Jonathan's Mission District Charmer. Hanging art from the molding is sometimes a necessity in rentals, but I also like the way it looks, adding a bit of visual interest beyond the artworks themselves. Dangling smaller frames directly from larger ones allows you to hang in a group.
Got ideas of your own for creative artwork displays? Please share!
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Comments (13)
I loved #1 when I first saw the tour and I plan to use the idea in my kids' room.
These are all so childish. Ok for a kid's room, I guess, but for an adult's apartment? Really? Looks like college dorm room stuff.
I've been looking for a skinny shelf like the one in #4. Does anyone know where to get one? I want something to display vinyls on, I usually use the album frames from urban outfitters but this would be nicer and easier to rotate, I also like to put up issues of magazines like rolling stone whenever one of my favorite artists makes the cover.
Ikea now sells those shallow shelves. Cheap, too!
You can find skinny art work/ photography mat shelves at Ikea, I'm actually planning to buy a few!
I love the mantelpiece. Lovely. But not #8...I wouldn't place artwork above the TV. If there is artwork, we should look at it, not TV. What's wrong with the flat screen TV on the wall anyway? It's not ugly or anything. I think it's much better than the all tangled cable wire hell under the TV stand!
I'm with Rosemary, a cable box would do a lot more to improve #8 than that artwork.
number 1 is awesome!
Please, anything but the clipboards. I think it looks awful.
I love the idea of the clipboards and hanging from twine. I just know that the art will fade, even if it isn't in sunlight. I worked in a frame shop and know the effect of not having UV-protective glass or plexi over the art. Also they will probably curl and warp with heat or moisture.
I love those displays, just hope the art won't be that way long-term - maybe rotate very frequently? Or use those ideas with inexpensive prints? Or get them framed at a quality shop.
Not trying to be a downer here, just sayin'. :)
I have the exact same teddy bear. Weird.
We actually just hung things up on the walls (finally, after about three months). All we did was push in some steel thumbtacks, stretch some twine between them (fairly taut, as we had to figure out - turns out gravity makes things heavy sometimes) and suddenly we were able to hang things on the wall.
It finally makes our apartment feel more like home.
I love the idea of this post- there are certainly many ways of displaying artwork. Perhaps more importantly, art looks best when it doesn't overwhelm a space but adds just the right amount of visual interest. IMO the last photo is the best example of this.