1. Singles and pairs – Wondering how to display photographs or paintings on your wall – or your hallway console – but not sure what the optimal arrangement is? The easiest way to go, especially when you’re accessorizing various surface of your home, is to hang just one or two paintings, photographs, sketches, or wall mirrors over your sofa, console table, fireplace or bed. In fact, you can buy several of these singles or pairs and then put it everywhere you can think of. You’ll have less pieces to buy, and you don’t have to worry about arranging the objects next to each other to see if they work side by side. When you’re decorating coffee tables and console tables on the other hand, you have two ends to work with on these types of surfaces so you may want to do a pair of identical pieces (ex. candlesticks, vases, statuettes, etc.) set up next to each other on one side of the coffee table or console like in the picture below. It’s a simple, effective and a timeless approach to make an ordinary piece of furniture suddenly more interesting than it is.
2. The repeater – Another typical approach to displaying art on wall and tables is to group several pieces of the same size, subject matter, or style side by side over a sofa, hallway console or coffee table. There is a comforting sense of order when you come across groups of paintings or decorative objects that share a similar characteristic like in the living room picture below and in the hallway console above. Even without knowing anything about the art, you can see that the subject matter, technique and even the style of framing all somehow share a common thread. You’ll notice that the size and dimension of this trio have been carefully picked to create a pleasing array that coordinates nicely with the teal, white, and black colour scheme of the entire living room. To create the illusion of a higher ceiling, hang your paintings so that the lower edge of your artworks are between 6 to 8 inches above the top edge of your sofa.
3. The slope – This is a favourite technique that interior designers use especially whenever decorating console tables or coffee table with an array of objects that have a three-dimensional shape. This is the part where people stumble the most, as table surfaces are a little harder to accessorize using three dimensional objects compared to walls, which require only flat two dimensional pieces of art. I generally use a simple formula wherein I choose one end of the table to put a tall object, while the opposite end of the console or coffee table gets a much shorter piece. You can employ this decorating arrangement for any table surface – tall on one side and short on the other – and be done with it. Except in this case, I decided to fill the middle space with a cluster of see-thru cubes fused together on top of some coffee table books which accentuates that ‘slope’ effect that I’m going for from one end of the coffee table where the white vases are to the opposite end of the table where the metal bird is positioned.
4. The random array – One advanced move of displaying art is to acquire a collection of various pieces of art from your travels abroad, visits around town to various home décor stores (or art galleries), trips to estate sales, thrift shops and even yard sales to form a pleasing array of different styles of painting. Most people build a collection around particular theme like specific type of animal, plant or just images of female figures. Personally, I’m a fan of human faces. I also like to display art in singles, pairs, and triples as I like order and consistency. That said, I do have 3 adjacent walls along a stairwell where I thought it might be too boring and predictable to have a grouping of same-sized pieces of art. So I hung a random collection that includes 4 ft x 6 ft abstract painting that a noted artist left behind for my safekeeping and is currently for sale, a 4 ft x 4 ft picture of random colour blocks that an old business partner gave me as a gift, a 3 ft x 3 ft framed print of the head of a Mexican ‘hombre’ that I found at a thirft store, and a 2.5 ft x 2.5 ft acrylic landscape painting that was given to me by a grateful client after I did work on several of their homes at the bottom of my stairway. Although the size and subject matter are all different, what makes it work visually is that nearly all the pieces had blue, white and/or red colours to tie them all together. I did throw in a pair of black and white ink sketches from an artist in Portugal at the top of the stairsjust to mix things up black and white don’t clash with anything given that they’re neutral colours. It’s such a striking display of seemingly random pieces of art that the collection attracts passersby on the street who stop to look admiringly into windows at the front of the house to look at these paintings.
5. The low and flat plain – When you’re filling up a coffee table with objects to create an interesting display, a terrific option would be to put a large number of hardbound books on the surface. A lot of people like to assemble a collection of hardcovers based on a single topic (ex. architecture, fashion, or fine art are typical) or even cover colour. But you can certainly display a wide selection of different subjects, sizes and colours. It’s best to stack the books all at the same height to form a flat plain, no higher than 6” inches starting with the biggest books underneath and ending with the smallest ones on top. Some designers favor the titles facing towards the couch. I personally favor titles facing away from the sofa so that you can see the book spines when you walk into the living room. You can also put in some loose little items over and between the books like small serving bowls, succulent plants, or smaller 3D sculptures that are available from home décor stores like CB2, West Elm or Structube to make things more lively and interesting.
