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Good Questions: What Level to Hang Pictures?

Maxwell Ryan
Maxwell RyanCEO
Maxwell left teaching in 2001 to start Apartment Therapy as a design business helping people to make their homes more beautiful, organized AND healthy. The website started up in 2004 with the help of his brother, Oliver. Since then he has grown ApartmentTherapy.com, added…read more
published Mar 25, 2005
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Hello AT,

I’m trying to hang pictures on my wall. My ceilings are 10 feet 6 inches. I have 14 inches of ceiling moldings and wall, then 4 inches of crown molding, then its 100 inches to the baseboard and 8 inches of baseboard. I have panel moldings at 10 inches below the crown molding and 10 inches up from the top of the baseboard.

At what level should I hang the pictures? I heard someone say “54 inches”, but from what? From both floor and ceiling, it looks really low. Is there a rule about where they should hang within the panel moldings?
thanks, Alex

Our rule of thumb is to hang all pictures at 57″ on center. This is “gallery height” and roughly the average human eye level.

To do this you measure up 57″ from the floor (mark here). You want your picture’s center – whatever size – over this point, so measure your picture – top to bottom, divide it in half, …

subtract whatever distance there is between wire and top of frame and then add that number to your 57″. That is where you put the pin in.

As far as panel mouldings go, we would just use these to center pictures left to right. As far as 57″ on center looking low, everyone hangs their pictures too high, so it seems odd at first. Don’t worry, it’s correct. (Thanks, Alex!) MGR