How to choose the right size of wall art for your living room

The right size of wall art is set by the furniture beneath it. Above a sofa or bed, a canvas or a group of canvases should be about two-thirds to three-quarters as wide as the furniture, with its bottom edge roughly 6 to 10 in above the sofa back or headboard. On a wall with nothing in front of it, hang large wall art so its center sits about 57 to 60 in from the floor. Over a typical 84 in sofa, that means about 56 to 63 in of art in total.

These numbers come from long-standing design guidance, and you can adjust them to your room. The rest of this guide shows where they come from and how they work out with our three sizes: 20 x 16 in, 36 x 24 in and 40 x 30 in.

Measure the furniture first

The wall is rarely the right thing to measure. From across the room, the sofa and the wall above it read as one shape. So start with the furniture.

• Sofa: measure from arm to arm. Retailer size guides put a typical three-seat sofa at about 79 to 87 in wide and a two-seat sofa at about 59 to 71 in.
• Bed: measure the headboard. With no headboard, use the mattress: a full is 54 in wide, a queen 60 in and a king 76 in.
• Height: note the height of the sofa back or the top of the headboard. That line, not the floor, is where the art begins.

Size wall art to two-thirds of the furniture width

The most repeated sizing rule in interior guidance is that art over furniture should measure about two-thirds of the furniture's width. Hunker puts it plainly for a sofa: the art should measure "about two-thirds of the couch length." Some art retailers' guides let you push the width up to three-quarters when you want the wall to read as a single bold focal point.

Narrower than two-thirds, a single canvas leaves long stretches of empty wall at each end and looks marooned in the middle. Wider than three-quarters, it crowds the arms and the lamps beside them. Between the two, art and furniture look as though they were chosen together.

How high to hang wall art above a couch

Hung too high, a canvas looks detached from the sofa below it. Two measurements set the height.

1. The gap above the sofa. Erin Greene, a San Francisco designer, suggests a gap of 6 to 12 in between the bottom edge of the art and the furniture. Hunker suggests 8 to 10 in over a couch, and Framebridge 7 to 10 in. An 8 to 10 in gap sits inside all three ranges.
2. The center height. On a bare wall, the common guideline is to center art at about 57 in from the floor, roughly average eye level (Framebridge). Kelly Cahn, a New York art advisor, works to about 60 in, and keeps the center of the art within about 24 in of the furniture top.

Over a sofa, the gap usually wins. Take a sofa whose back is 32 in high. With an 8 in gap, the bottom of a 40 x 30 in landscape canvas sits at 40 in and its center at 55 in. That is within 2 in of the 57 in guideline, and the center is 23 in above the sofa back.

If the sofa back is low, raise the gap toward 10 or 12 in rather than letting the art float far above the seat. And allow enough room for someone to lean back, head against the cushions, without bumping the art.

Wall art above a bed

Over a bed, the same proportion applies, measured against the headboard. Spoak's guidance on hanging art above a bed sets "at least two-thirds" of the headboard width as a general guideline, with the art 6 to 8 in above the headboard. With no headboard, measure from the top of the pillows. A canvas of the right width then does some of a headboard's work, giving the bed a clear place on the wall.

Two practical points matter more over a bed than over a sofa. Pillows shift in the night, so allow enough clearance that they won't tilt the canvas. And make sure it hangs securely on its back hanging, since it sits above the place where someone sleeps.

Worked examples with our three sizes

The tables below show which canvases suit common sofa and bed widths, alone or in a group. Our canvases come in 20 x 16 in, 36 x 24 in and 40 x 30 in. Portrait works use the same sizes upright, so a 40 x 30 in portrait canvas is 30 in wide and 40 in tall. Each size has its own fitted composition, rather than one image cropped three ways.

The widths below include a 3 in gap between canvases unless a row says otherwise. Design guidance gives 2 to 5 in for groups.

Over a sofa

On an 84 in sofa, a single 40 x 30 in landscape canvas covers 48% of the width. It can still work if the sofa is low and the lamps on either side are tall, but it will read smaller than the guideline suggests. A pair in portrait answers the length of the sofa better: two tall canvases side by side, like a pair of windows above the cushions.

Over a bed

If your headboard is wider than the mattress, as many are, work from the headboard width instead. A queen headboard of 64 in, for example, puts the target at about 43 to 48 in, which two 20 x 16 in canvases in landscape (43 in) meet.

Hang two or three canvases as one group

For size and height, a group of two or three canvases follows the same rules as a single canvas. Framebridge treats an arrangement as one piece for height, and the two-thirds rule applies to its outer edges.

• Spacing: keep the gaps even. Advice ranges from 2 to 3 in (Kelly Cahn and Spoak) to 2 to 5 in (Hunker). Close spacing holds the group together as one picture; wider spacing lets each canvas stand on its own.
• Alignment: line up the tops and bottoms, or the centers, so the group shares one horizontal line.
• Same size, same orientation: a pair or a row of three is simplest when every canvas is the same size and hung the same way.

Large wall art on a bare wall

Some of the walls that most need art have no furniture in front of them: a stair wall, the end of a hallway, the wall beside a dining table. Large wall art there has no sofa to measure against. Use the 57 to 60 in center height, then judge width against the clear section of wall between doors, windows or corners. One art retailer's guide applies the same two-thirds idea to the wall itself, so a 60 in clear stretch would suit about 40 in of art: one 40 x 30 in landscape canvas, for example.

Check the size before you order

Every canvas we sell is printed to order, so test the size on the wall first. An outline on the wall shows the canvas at its true size before you order.

1. Mark an outline on the wall at the size you have in mind.
2. Set its bottom edge at the gap you plan to use above the furniture.
3. Step back to the doorway and to where you usually sit. Those are the views you will live with.
4. If you are torn between two sizes, outline both and live with them for a day, in daylight and lamplight, before you choose.

Our canvases are 1.25 in deep and arrive unframed and ready to hang, with the picture continuing around the edges as a mirror image. Allow for a size tolerance of plus or minus 1/8 in when you plan a tight group.

FAQ

What size wall art should go above a couch?

Choose art about two-thirds to three-quarters of the couch's width. For an 84 in sofa, that is about 56 to 63 in of art, such as two 40 x 30 in canvases in portrait with a 3 in gap.

How high should art hang above a sofa?

Leave about 6 to 10 in between the sofa back and the bottom of the canvas. Over a sofa, that gap usually puts the center of the art near the 57 to 60 in eye-level guideline.

What size art goes above a queen bed?

A queen mattress is 60 in wide, so aim for about 40 to 45 in of art. A single 40 x 30 in canvas in landscape is 40 in wide, which is two-thirds of the bed. Measure your headboard if it is wider than the mattress.

Should I hang one large canvas or several smaller ones?

Either works if the total width meets the two-thirds guideline. One large canvas gives the wall a single focal point. Two or three canvases of the same size, evenly spaced 2 to 3 in apart, fill a long sofa or a king bed more easily.