How to do picture walls like THE PIG
How to do picture walls like THE PIG
People get a bit frightened about buying ‘real’ paintings. But lovely old watercolours, oils and prints have been produced in such volume from Victorian times onwards that junk shops and antiques markets are overflowing with them. They’re often reasonably priced and the frames alone can be works of art too.
What we find works well is to decide on a theme to build an entire wall around. It can be anything – slightly kitsch 1950s flower paintings, 1940s portraits, old oil ancestor paintings or prints with a seafaring theme. As long as the thematic link is there, all kinds of shapes and sizes and frames can look good together, and no single painting needs to be the star.
We have a wall of paintings on the staircase at THE PIG-at Combe that we call our ‘Brian May’ wall. It has lots of old curly-haired ancestor types in oils, who all look a bit like Queen’s legendary guitar god.
If you find something you like but it’s in a dodgy frame, buy it and get it reframed. Often, if we find an old oil painting we like, but with a frame that’s more shabby than chic, we ditch the frame completely and hang the canvas directly on the wall – it’s a great look.
How to do your own hang:
- Try out different groupings of your pictures on the floor, putting the strongest at the centre.
- Decide if you want the gaps between them to be uniform and all the tops and bottoms of the pictures lined up – there’s no right or wrong.
- Once you’re happy with your hang, take a photo on your phone so you can recreate it on the wall.
- A blob of sticky putty behind the corners of pictures will help to keep them straight.
