How to hang an even number of pictures

When hanging a gallery with an odd number of frames it’s easy to center the middle frame and work out from there. With an even number of frames in the arrangement, it can be trickier to get started. Use this decorating tip to quickly get the middle two frames centered in your gallery. And, see how we hung 4 frames above a bench in the entryway.

Arranging an even number of frames

For this project we had four frames we wanted to hang in the entryway above a small bench. To decide what arrangement we wanted to use, we laid our pictures out on the floor to try different options. In this case we decided we liked the horizontal arrangement best, and we arranged them in an order we liked, with spacing that looked good to us.

Using painter’s tape to get the center and spacing right

Tear off a piece of painter’s tape that is wider than the space between the middle two frames, and place it on the wall, positioned so that the middle of the tape is roughly in the center of where you want your arrangement to hang. You don’t have to worry how high it is, we are looking for the horizontal center.

Tip: make sure not to press the tape too firmly into the wall. You want to be able to remove it easily and you don’t want any residue left on the wall. Some companies like 3M even make a painter's tape with a low tack adhesive. You can find out more here.

Find the center and mark the centerline on the tape

Once you’ve added your tape on the wall, find and mark the center of your arrangement. Here we’ve shown two ways to tackle it. In the top image, we are measuring the wall the bench is in front of and marking the center of the space on the tape.

In the image on the bottom, we are simply finding the middle of the piece of furniture below the hanging and transferring that measurement to the tape. Note you don’t have to be 100% accurate, you can always nudge the furniture afterwards to line it up.

Measure the spacing you created

Once you have everything laid out, measure the space between the frames. Here it’s around 3 inches. Finally, take that measurement and divide it in half, you’ll need this number for the next part. In our case this is 1 ½ inches.

Mark out the spacing on the tape

Using a tape measure, place marks on either side of the centerline that are the distance you calculated above by taking the space between frames and dividing it in half. You are now ready to hang your frames.

Start with the middle frames

Use the outer marks as a guide to hang the first two frames. Line up the edge of each frame with the marks on the tape. Once you have the first two frames hung, peel the tape off the wall.

Use the same space for the rest of the frames

Here’s a quick tip: take the piece of tape with the markings on it, and shorten it by tearing it close to the two outer marks. You now have a spacer you can use to get the space between the rest of the pictures perfectly identical! Simply place it to an existing frame and use it to position the frame beside it using it as a guide.

Make your space your own

When you have an even number of items in a gallery, making sure that the space in between the two middle frames is centered is the key to making it look balanced. This is true whether your frames are arranged in a single row, or stacked on top of each other in multiple rows. If you’d like an easier way to hang your frames in the exact spot you want, check out our Hang & Level™ picture hanging tool below.

Hang & Level™ marks where to put the nail

We designed Hang & Level to mark exactly where to put the nail. It’s great for hanging single items, but it is even more useful when you want to hang a number of pictures or wall décor items together in a gallery. Two things make hanging galleries difficult: first, it is hard to align things well. If there is a picture hung slightly off, the whole arrangement looks bad. Secondly, it is hard to figure out where to put the nail to hang the item where you want it. Hang & Level solves both of these problems. Check out our Hang & Level YouTube playlist to see this picture hanging tool in action.

We love designing products to make decorating easy and help people create spaces that bring them joy. Click on the live chat below or email us at: questions@utrdecorating.com, and we’ll do our best to help you Create the home you love™

-The UTR Team