How to center your art: with your furniture or the wall?

How to correctly center artwork on the wall is one of the most popular questions we get asked:
Q: I have a piece of furniture that is not located in the center of the wall. If I want to hang a piece of art above it, should the art be centered on the furniture or on the wall?

When hanging your pictures, always hang them in relation to the furniture sitting below. With your couch off-centered on the wall, focus on hanging your painting centered above the couch to create a great focal point for your living room. As you see in the bottom image, if you were to hang your piece centered with the wall, the entire furniture arrangement would look out of balance.
For more tips on hanging artwork above a sofa, check out this related blog post “Easy tips for hanging pictures above a couch”. Learn more about our Hang & Level™ picture hanging tool, and shop online at UTR Decorating.
Have any other decorating questions? Email us at questions@utrdecorating.com and we’ll do our best to help you Create the home you love™
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The UTR Team On
Hi there, thanks for reaching out. That’s a great question. Generally speaking, we try and align artwork with a piece of furniture, even if that piece of furniture is not centred on the wall. This approach is the same when dealing with a space that has been divided by something other than walls, for example by furniture arrangement or coffered ceilings. Whenever you walk into the space, your brain will look for balance in the space. Aligning the artwork with the furniture arrangement or in the middle of the space will make it look more balanced. That’s the approach we’d take, but at the end of the day, whatever looks good to you is the ‘right’ answer!
Stephanie Robinson On
Do I center wall hanging horizontally on the long wall or center it horizontally to long side of coffered ceiling, which is not centered to the wall?
Marta Santoro On
Hi I recently moved to a smaller house and have many paintings that my husband insist to put them up on this wall regardless . They all are different in size and frames . Here is the wall space I have with a flat tv on the furniture and all these pics he put on the wall, that in my opinion they are all wrong , no style , no balance no nothing . Please help !
Kristy On
What if the couch is approx. two feet from the wal!?
Faye Stewart On
I have a queen panel headboard, what can I put over the headboard?