Finding the best wall art for high ceilings may seem challenging at first, but these are 5 simple tips to help you think through what wall art will look best in your space. By being thoughtful at the beginning of the process (when you’re thinking about what art you want to hang up and how you’re going to hang it) you’ll save yourself time later. And you’ll be way happier with the result.
There are a few different ways that you can approach decorating a room with high ceilings, and there are a few things to keep in mind so that you enhance your high ceilings rather than take away from them.
Let’s talk about wall art for high ceilings and some tips and tricks to make selecting and hanging up your wall art way easier. You don’t need to rewrite the book to accommodate for your high ceilings, but there are a few simple things you can do to enhance the look of your wall art in your space.
My goal with this post is to make your life just a little bit easier! I hope that these 5 tips help you when you’re choosing and hanging up your wall art.
This post is all about wall art for high ceilings. Let’s get into it!
1. Embrace large wall art
Increasing the size of wall art that you choose for a room with high ceilings is a smart way to keep the same look you might have had otherwise. The great thing about this is that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel โ you can get inspiration from all of your usual places and figure out what you want to do to fill your walls, and then simply adjust for scale.
And when I say embrace large wall art, I mean large! I have a small bedroom and even have large wall art in there. So to make a space look big and feel full, you can really go for it with the size of your art.
tip: large wall art helps to fill a room and make it feel larger and more spacious. plus, it helps you avoid having huge areas of empty wall space.
For example, if you wanted to do a gallery wall you still can do that and make it look really good. Choose a few large works of art to help center the gallery wall and fill in with slightly smaller works of art. The point here is that even your smaller works of art should be bigger than the wall art that you may have elsewhere.
Do you see what I mean? It’s about increasing the scale of your wall art to make your space feel bigger and more full.
Hanging up a quilt or tapestry that is too beautiful to use otherwise is an easy way to embrace large wall art in your space. Quilts tend to take up and entire wall, and they add color and art to your space in a unique way.
We have a quilt hung up in our living room that’s right off of the kitchen. It makes it feel extra cozy to have that added layer of softness, and it’s so historical and beautiful in the space.
2. Create a gallery wall that’s both tall and wide
Creating a large scale gallery wall is a great way to enhance the look of your high ceilings and also give your home a unique, elevated, artful feel.
Start with 2 or 3 really large pieces of art and fill in with some medium sizes works of art, and then finally go in and fill in the gaps with smaller sizes of art. If you want to spare yourself some headache, you can sketch out the layout of your gallery wall on paper beforehand.
tip: it is better to leave space vertically rather than horizontally. So if you need to sacrifice making a gallery wall either tall or wide โ make it wide.
A tall gallery wall that is not wide typically does not look great because it leaves a lot of empty space on the sides. That just looks awkward. So, if you have to choose between tall or wide, make your gallery wall wide! I think that’s typically what looks the best.
If you have high ceilings in your entryway where your stairs are, you can create an ascending gallery wall with your stairs. There’s lots of inspiration for that on Pinterest! I love this pin.
This gallery wall gives the otherwise classically designed space a very eclectic and unique feel. Especially if you are choosing wall art that feels unique to who you are, this is a way to make your home feel like it’s yours.
3. Experiment with a large triptych (that means 3 pieces of wall art that go together)
If a gallery wall feels overwhelming to you, try a triptych! A triptych is three pieces of art that go together. It’s a loose definition because the art could be made to be hung up together or you could just hang up three pieces of art together that you picked yourself. Photos will help this make more sense.
For example, sometimes triptychs are three pieces of art that go all together and do not really make sense to have separate from one another.
tip: you can create your own triptych by hanging up three pieces of wall art together that are all in the same size frame and create a pretty color palette together.
Another common thing to see when you’re looking for triptychs is three pieces of art that could easily be hung up separately, but look like they are all from the same collection and by the same artist. The pin below illustrates this beautifully.
You also can get hang up a triptych with three pieces of art that may not necessarily have been bought together, but create a beautiful color palette.
4. Pair large wall art with a large mirror
This is so easy to do and it looks so good. Pairing large wall art with a large mirror is almost as simple as it sounds, but there’s one thing that you can do to make it look even better.
My tip is to hang up your wall art how you were planning to do it without the mirror. Then add the mirror leaning against a wall or on top of your mantle, or anywhere that it can lean and look good. The contrast between the wall art that’s hung up and the leaning mirror is really nice.
tip: choose an artful mirror that helps bring out some of your favorite elements of your interior design style. For example, get a vintage inspired mirror!
You’re still going to want more than one piece of wall art with this approach โ the mirror simply helps to enhance the high ceilings and the wall art that you have. I love how in this pin, there are even flowers in front of the mirror. It shows that it’s not really about using the mirror as a mirror, it’s about the effect it gives the space.
The best case scenario is that your mirror looks like a piece of art in and of itself! When looking for artful mirror inspiration, I often turn to Anthropologie to see their mirror selection and draw inspo from there.
5. Hang your wall art at eye level where people can see it
This tip is really important! A common mistake that happens especially when people have high ceilings is that they hang their wall art way too high up.
You don’t need to vertically center your wall art on the wall โ in fact, you shouldn’t. It looks very strange, and you won’t even really be able to see the art that well. Unless you’re like 7 feet tall.
tip: Use your own eye level as a guide of where to hang your wall art. When in doubt, place your art so that the bottom frame is within a few inches of the furniture it is hung over.
If you’re really tall or really short, you can use your furniture as a guide of how high to hang your art. For example, if you’re hanging up art above a desk, dresser, or bed, you’ll want to make sure that the bottom of the frame is within a few inches of the top of the furniture. In the pin below, you can see how a triptych was hung up above a bed with only a few inches separating the bottom of the frame and the headboard.
This may seem low at first, but it looks much better this way. It’s a simple trick that you’ll see most interior designers follow. Hanging your art carefully and not too high helps to elevate the look and feel of your home.
I hope that you’re feeling inspired and ready to choose wall art that will enhance your high ceilings. Troubleshooting what works in your space and what you like and don’t like takes some time, but it’s so worth it.
This post was all about wall art for high ceilings.
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need more inspiration to create a bedroom that you love?
Check out this blog post about wall art bedroom decor.
Curious about more design tips for home?
Check out this blog post about 5 Simple Design Tips for Home.
Want the best frames on Amazon?
Check out this blog post with 15 of the best picture frames from Amazon.
Thanks so much for reading along!
