Hanging Around - How to Easily Put Up Big Pictures — By Guest Dad John Spencer

Quick intro from Design Mom — John is the owner and designer and carpenter behind Via Toy Boxes. And he's recently launched a blog, Resident Carpenter to answer all your carpentry questions. I know many of you out there are DIY-ers and would love to bend the ear of an expert, so I asked John to repost some of his great advice here as a Guest Dad. And happily for us, he said Yes! I'll be featuring his posts all week. You can read more about John here.



Hanging a piece of wall art can make a big impact in the room and your psyche, especially if you get satisfaction from doing it yourself. If you are a bit hesitant to tackle this kind of job, I will show you a few things to help bolster your confidence and get it done right. Just remember that if you do it, you can put up whatever you want, wherever you want.

The best tools for this job are a measuring tape, a phillips screw driver, and a pencil. If you had a little level, too, that would be very helpful, but you could just eye it. You will also need drywall screws, or coarse threaded screws 1 1/2" to 2" long. These fasteners work very well in most types of wall surfaces like, lath and plaster or sheetrock. Plus, this way there is no loud banging with a hammer to wake up a sleeping child or make your thumb black and blue.

Speaking of which, a good rule of thumb when hanging things on the wall is to center the piece at eye level. Of course, there are always exceptions, but generally this works well. So, the center of most pictures would be between 60" and 66".

Once you decide on the location, use your measuring tape to find where the center of your picture will be. You may want to center it between the end of the wall and a window or between a door and the fireplace. Whatever the case, find the center and put a light pencil mark about 5 feet up from the floor. Now, locate the hanging device on the back of your piece. This could be a wire stretched across, two hooks (one on each side), or simply the top of the canvas frame. Measure the distance between the center of the piece and the hanger. Make another mark on the wall that distance above the first mark.

I recommend using at least 2 screws so the picture stays level. For the piece that has 2 separate hooks on the back, measure the distance between them. Center that measurement between your highest mark on the wall and make 2 more little marks. If you have a wire or just a wood frame space the 2 marks about the same distance as one-third the width of your piece. Make sure the 2 marks are level and insert the screws on the marks at a slight downward angle into the wall at least 3/4" deep. Be sure enough of the screw head protrudes to catch the hooks, wire, or frame.

Now stand back and admire your accomplishment. Have questions for John? He will answer each question via email and post one question and answer every week.