Looking for a way to fill your home’s blank walls? Looking for a way to finally use all those art pieces you’ve been collecting? We’ve got a creative solution for just about every blank space in your home. We all know how different places can look with even simple renovations, but you don’t need a home renovation service to make your place look great. Where and how you place your artwork on the walls can make a huge difference in the look and feel of a room.

Believe it or not, art display ideas for home is a pretty broad topic. There are as many ways to interact with art as there are people who experience art, and everybody will have their own preferences when it comes to what’s hanging where in their space. That said, there are a few general rules about space that we can follow to come up with novel ways of displaying your art that is still practical and functional.

Overall, it’s best to consider your space when planning how you’ll display your art. An idea might be great in theory but fall apart when applied to your particular home. Look for art display ideas for home that resonate with you, that you find interesting and appealing, and that will work for the space you currently have available. Trying to design for a dream space with your current home as a canvas will just leave things looking out of place.

Here are some fun art display ideas for home!

Interior Windows

Have a bunch of outdoor scenes? Mimic the look of indoor windows between rooms by framing out the pieces with window trim and covering them with glass. This whimsical way of displaying art will add a touch of charm to your home and can even help the space feel larger — a great solution for those tiny apartments! If you’re a bit crafty, you could even make the piece into a lightbox and add a little more magic to the display.

Mismatched Frames

A quick and inexpensive way to create a ‘gathered over time’ look on your art wall is to go to your local thrift store and pick up mismatched frames. Hit them with some new paint in a color coordinated scheme, then hang them on the wall in a gallery. White mats behind the art pieces help to unify the overall look, while still letting the frames stand out. Collections like this invite the viewer to stop and stay awhile, making them popular choices for entryways and family rooms.

Odd Numbers

The “rule of threes” really comes into play for these art display ideas for home. In general, odd numbers are more visually interesting than even ones. You can hang items in an order to create some kind of symmetry, or go for a more casual look. This works especially well for diverse items with visual texture, such as plates and other collectibles. Granted, it’s probably not the best solution if you’re someone who’s fussy about everything being even and level.

Go Vertical

Always remember to use the space you’re given, not the space you wish you had. If you have one stretch of vertical wall, then hang one long painting or photo to fill the space. You can also create a kind of waterfall collage by hanging several rows of images in the space instead of just one. The images pull the eye toward the ceiling and can even make the space feel larger than it is, so it’s a great idea for a smaller apartment or a home with a smaller footprint but high ceilings.

Mind Your Space

Make sure the art pieces you’re getting are the right size and scale for the space you’re working with. As tempting as it might be to just ignore a blank stretch of wall, or throw any old photo there, you can really elevate the space by choosing a correctly sized piece to fill in the gap. Pair it with something like a chair or small table for a more polished, finished look. The piece you choose can really be anything as long as it fits with the overall aesthetic of the space, making this one of the greatest art display ideas for home.

Grids

Grids are a great way to display multiple art pieces around the same theme. The close proximity of the pieces makes them feel like one piece, but each one can stand alone as its own work of art. This kind of display method works best on a large expanse of walls with nothing around it to pull focus. Popular places include over sofas, beds, and in entryways since, much like galleries, they invite closer inspection and maybe a story or two.

Lighting

Sometimes, less is more when it comes to hanging art. Consider placing a favorite piece on the wall under a single, low-wattage light. This really showcases the piece in question and the low light invites the viewer to get closer and notice the finer details. This is also a more high-end gallery look, bringing a touch of elegance to the room it’s featured in. This is best done in larger rooms and with images, you feel you want to showcase to any and all guests who may come over.

Go Large

One of the best art display ideas for home is to make a statement with some oversized prints. When looking for large pieces to fill up a space, it’s best to avoid colors or patterns that could pull focus and overwhelm the rest of the room, or that clash with the already established theme and decor. Go for something simple but eye-catching, with a lot of white space to help separate it from the wall behind it. If you’re not a fan of pure white canvas, you can always look for pieces with a large amount of negative space, whatever the color of the background.

Shelving

Dress up open shelving in the kitchen, living room, etc. with an art print or two in a standing frame. You can also add functional pieces like a stack of dishes to keep the space usable and add some visual texture to the space. As another option, you could choose a spot and create some floating shelves to hold artwork. This is another place where you can add some more visually interesting touches, like plates, plants, and other collectibles.

Shapes

You can hang multiple pieces in one area as long as they’re unified by their color scheme. These can include photographs, art prints, even signs and sculptural pieces! First, experiment a little by laying your pieces out on the floor. Start in the center of the design and build outward. Take a few good photographs so you remember where you placed everything, then carefully transfer it all to the wall. Playing with shapes can really free you up for some creative expression, so pieces like these are great for living rooms and in home art studios.

There are so many art display ideas for home — these were just a few of the ones we could come up with! No matter your budget or experience level, you can find something interesting and beautiful to do with your art pieces and completely transform the look and feel of your space. So jump in! Play around with the pieces you have on hand already and see what you can make something new out of, or how you might arrange things differently to highlight one piece or the other. The possibilities are endless!

A great way to unify a space is with a good color pallette. That doesn’t mean everything has to be the same color or the same shade, just that all the items in a collection look like they really belong in the same space. This can work for shades of the same color, like blues or pinks, or for a general family of colors, like sunset or jewel tones. You can also organize by size and shape of the piece — matching or mismatching as you see fit.

But before you run off with these art display ideas for home, a couple of words of caution:

Climate Control

Depending on the media used to create the art in question, you may want to be careful where you place it in your home. Too much direct heat or air conditioning can be harmful to certain, more delicate materials, so it pays to be sure of any restrictions or storage requirements that come along with your art.

A home’s HVAC system controls the interior climate. Running the heater works to warm the space, and also dries out the air, making things like mold and mildew, which need damp environments to thrive, less likely. This is also why it’s best to avoid storing art pieces in unfinished basements, even if it is the easiest place for them. Besides, storing your art somewhere slightly less convenient for a while is still better than having to pay for mildew removal later on.

Movers

A standard moving company may not really be equipped to handle or ship art pieces without damage. They certainly won’t mean to damage your art, but the supplies they typically work with may not be adequate to keep pieces safe in transit, especially if they’re particularly fragile. While most shipping supplies work very well for most packages, there’s always a certain difficulty in shipping stretched canvas or carefully bent metal.

If you’re contracting with a moving company to relocate, you may be better off sending your art pieces with an actual art mover who will have the proper shipping supplies. They’ll have both the tools and the knowledge to get your pieces to your new home without incident.

Rentals

A house or apartment rental may have specific rules about what can and cannot be hung on the wall, at least in terms of size and weight. It’s always best to get permission from the landlord to hang a heavy art piece than to lose a deposit over the hole you had to put in the wall. If you’re not permitted to hang your favorite piece, you can always place it on shelving, or even prop it against the wall and arrange the surrounding space to highlight it. Some good floor cushions and reading lights can turn a piece of art against the wall into a cozy space to curl up with a nice book.

The bottom line is this: Whether you run a busy investment company or are a stay-at-home mom, you can elevate the look of your space just by hanging some well-chosen art in a well-thought-out way. You can skip the home remodeling contractor and use your own skills to make your space look great!

When you’re thinking about art display ideas for home, you might be imagining all the ways you could arrange things in your dream home. While goals are great things to have, they’re not what we’re living at the moment. Instead, focus on the good parts of your own space. What do you want to highlight? What do you want to fade into the background? All of this can be accomplished with some strategic placement of art pieces.

Work with the space and the pieces that you have first. If you have a lot of larger pieces, consider placing them around the house so you don’t overwhelm a single room with them. If you instead have a lot of small pieces, galleries and working vertically will be great solutions for you. It’s all about understanding what the space needs in order to feel completely finished and intentionally designed.

With some general know-how and the willingness to get in there and see what you can do, you can elevate the look and feel of your space in just minutes. Art display ideas for home can come from anywhere — from magazines, from television, or from a whim you decided to follow, etc. In the end, what matters is that you enjoy and feel at home in your own space.

So get out there and create some art of your own — with a brush or with a hammer and a few nails. Sometimes the display itself can end up being part of the art.