Last September when I moved into my apartment, I was really anxious to get all my artwork hung. For one, it always makes me feel more at home when my space is decorated, and for another, in only 350SF, there’s not a whole lot of place to store artwork, besides, you know, on the walls.

In my last apartment, I hung all the artwork myself. I bought a hammer and some nails from Home Depot, and haphazardly went to work. Out of laziness, I rarely measured things, and since I lived alone, it was hard to see if things were centered on the wall or too high before I actually put a nail in the wall. The result was that behind every single piece of art in my house was at least five nail holes. Turns out, I’m a “done is better than perfect” person after all.

This time around, I knew I didn’t want to have a graveyard of nail holes in my apartment walls, so I decided to post about my project on Thumbtack and see if there were any picture-hanging professionals out there who could help me hang all the artwork in my apartment for a reasonable price. I figured there would be some handyman who would do the trick, but when an interior decorator responded to my project, I jumped at the chance to hire her. I knew she would not only be able to hang my artwork, but be able to provide a professional opinion on where everything would go. Her rate was $95/hour and she said she could hang everything for me in an hour—and let me tell y’all, it was money well spent.

When she arrived to my apartment, I had laid out where I thought all my artwork should go. Together, we talked through everything, and she helped me make a few tweaks. As we got started on the actual hanging, she taught me an amazing trick—when possible, hang your artwork so that the piece’s center is 60 inches from the floor. This puts the artwork at eye-level for most people, which is why it’s used as the standard in most art galleries and museums. If you’re stacking two pictures on top of each other, aim to have the bottom of the top piece of art be at that 60-inch mark.

Many people—myself included!—tend to hang their artwork too high, and it draws your eye up and negatively impacts the design of the room. By sticking with this 60-inch trick, your artwork will be hung at an appropriate height, and you’ll never have to guess how high to hang artwork again.

If you’re local and want the contact information of who I used, shoot me an email—katie@atouchofteal.com. I am happy to share her information!