Collection: Wall Decor

A wall piece is a load before it is a picture

Everything on this page hangs off a hole in your wall, and the hole is the part nobody photographs. A 2 lb (0.9 kg) cotton hanging and a 12 lb (5.4 kg) rope shelf carrying two pots are the same object as far as the wall is concerned: a weight pulling down and outward, usually at one point.

The failure looks identical every time. The piece holds for a week, then the anchor works loose and comes out with a cone of white dust and a hole three times wider than the one you drilled. That is not bad luck. Hollow drywall is about 1/2 in (13 mm) of compressed gypsum with paper on each face, and a plain screw driven into it has almost nothing to bite.

So settle two things before you settle on a style: what the wall is made of, and what the finished piece weighs with everything you intend to put on it. Compared with those two answers, choosing the shape is the easy part.

Find out what the wall is made of

Knock on it. A hollow drum sound between the studs means drywall. A dull thud with no give means brick, block or concrete. Older houses give a third answer, a hard brittle surface over thin wood strips, which is plaster over lath and which crumbles if you treat it like drywall.

Studs in most US framing sit 16 in (41 cm) apart measured center to center, and 24 in (61 cm) in some newer construction. If you have no stud finder, measure out from a corner in 16 in steps, or find an outlet box: outlet boxes are nailed to the side of a stud, so there is timber within an inch of one edge.

Anchors, ranked by what they actually hold

Anchor packets print a number measured on fresh drywall with the weight pulling straight down. A shelf holds its load 6 in (15 cm) out from the wall, and that leverage pries the top of the anchor back out of the hole rather than dragging it down. Halve the printed figure and you land close to what the fixing does on your wall.

One fixing point or two

A framed piece with wire across the back can sit on one hook, because the wire spreads the pull along the frame and the frame does the rest. A rope shelf hanging from a single ring cannot. The board, the cords, everything standing on the board and the shove it gets when somebody reaches past all arrive at one anchor, and that anchor is usually in drywall.

Two fixings set 12 to 16 in (30 to 41 cm) apart cut the load on each one in half and stop the piece rotating when it is knocked. If a hanging arrives with a single loop of cord and it is going on drywall, rest the dowel across two hooks instead of threading the loop over one. It hangs exactly the same and it stops swinging every time a door closes.

Height and width, the two numbers people get wrong

Galleries hang the center of a piece 57 to 60 in (145 to 152 cm) off the floor, which is standing eye level for most adults. Use that on any stretch of empty wall. Almost every piece hung by eye lands 6 in (15 cm) too high, because you hang it standing close to the wall and then look at it from across the room.

Above furniture the floor stops being the reference and the furniture takes over. Leave 6 to 8 in (15 to 20 cm) between the top of a sofa back and the bottom of the piece. Past 10 in (25 cm) the two stop reading as a pair and the piece drifts on its own.

For width, aim to fill about two thirds of the furniture below. An 84 in (213 cm) sofa wants roughly 56 in (142 cm) of wall piece, measured edge to edge across a group with the gaps counted in. Inside a group, gaps of 2 to 3 in (5 to 8 cm) read as one object, and gaps of 6 in (15 cm) read as separate objects sharing a wall.

What a hanging shelf carries, and where

The cord is almost never the weak link. Braided cotton of 4 mm holds far more than the anchor behind it, and a pine board splits before the rope parts. The wall gives up first, every time, so size the fixing to the loaded weight rather than to the shelf.

Weigh what goes on it rather than guessing. A 6 in (15 cm) ceramic pot with a plant in it runs around 4 lb (1.8 kg), and closer to 6 lb (2.7 kg) in the hour after watering. Three hardback books run about 5 lb (2.3 kg). Two pots and a few books is a 15 lb (6.8 kg) shelf, which is past every adhesive hook sold.

Placement on the board matters as much as the total. Keep the heavy things at the ends, directly over the cords, and the light things in the middle. The center of a rope shelf is the point furthest from both supports, which is where a thin board bows and starts tipping its contents toward the floor.

Cotton, wood and metal, and how each one ages on a wall

Natural cotton macrame drifts from cream toward yellow in a south facing window over about two years. That is sun rather than dirt, and washing does not bring the color back. Hang cotton on a wall the sun crosses in passing, not the one it sits on all afternoon.

Fringe collects dust and keeps it. Vacuum with the brush head on the lowest suction, or hold a hair dryer on its cool setting about 12 in (30 cm) away and blow the dust out of the knots. Spot clean marks with cold water and a drop of mild soap worked in with your fingers, then blot dry. A fringed piece does not survive a washing machine: the knots tighten unevenly and it comes back shorter down one side.

Metal splits into two groups, and the label rarely tells you which. Powder coated steel handles a bathroom. Raw or lacquered steel does not, and a cut edge blooms rust over one damp season. Untreated wood shelving cups toward the wall in a humid room, which is how a flat board starts tipping things forward.

The wall pieces that earn their fixing

The things that stay on a wall for years are usually the ones doing a job. A peg rack by the door holds keys, a leash and the bag you carry every day, and it is the only decor in the house that gets touched twice a day. A small shelf beside a bed holds a glass of water and a phone, and it means one less nightstand in a room with no space for one.

That makes the measurements different. A coat peg sits well at 60 to 66 in (152 to 168 cm) off the floor for adults and around 40 in (102 cm) for children, and pegs want 6 in (15 cm) between them or the coats pile into a single lump.

A wall piece that holds nothing has to be worth looking at every single day. A piece that holds something only has to be worth looking at on the days it is empty, which is a far lower bar, and it is why hooks and small shelves outlast the decorative pieces they were bought alongside.