Living with the work

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A guide page, not an article: everything about walls, rooms, heights and sizes, grouped by what you are trying to solve.

A painting stops being a purchase the moment it is on the wall. Then it is just something in your house that people will see. Almost every question I get after a sale is about that transition: which room, how high, how big, and who is going to walk past it. Here they are, answered one at a time.

Where it goes

How big

Getting it there

Before you got here

Questions people ask

How high should a painting hang?

Centre the painting at eye level, which for most rooms means the middle of the canvas at about 145 cm from the floor. Above furniture, the rule changes: leave 15 to 20 cm between the top of the sofa or headboard and the bottom of the frame, so the two read as one group rather than two separate objects.

Is a nude painting suitable for a living room?

Yes, and it is the most common place these paintings end up. The room that people worry about is usually the hallway, because a guest meets it before they have met you. A bedroom is the easiest room of all and the least interesting one, because almost nobody except you will ever see it.

What size painting should go above a bed?

Aim for a canvas between two thirds and three quarters of the width of the bed. Above a 160 cm double bed that means roughly 100 to 120 cm wide. The usual mistake is choosing something too small, which leaves the wall looking unfinished no matter where you hang it.

Do the paintings arrive framed?

The paintings are oil on canvas on a stretcher and are sold unframed, which is normal for work on stretched canvas — the painted edges are part of the piece. A frame is a later choice you can make with a framer, not something that has to be decided before buying.

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Buying erotic art