How high to hang a pet portrait: centre height and nail position

This page explains how to choose the height of a framed pet portrait and how to turn that height into a nail position on the wall. It starts with one number, the centre height, and shows how to choose it for the people who will look at the portrait: adults standing, people sitting, and people using a wheelchair. It then gives a formula for the nail, worked figures for the four Purrealism print sizes, and the checks to run above furniture, in hallways and on stairs. The hanging planner at the end of this page does the same sums for your own frame. The main framing and hanging guide shows where this step fits in the order of work.

Why measure to the centre

A frame has a top edge, a bottom edge and a centre. If you choose one height for the middle of the frame, every size shares that line, and a small 8 × 10 inch portrait and a large 24 × 36 inch portrait can hang side by side and still look level with each other.

Museums work the same way. The Smithsonian Institution's guidelines for accessible exhibition design give the height of small items measured to their centre line, and the height of wall labels measured to their centre line as well. The page on planning a gallery wall around a pet portrait uses a shared centre line to hang several frames as one group.

So the first decision is the centre height. The nail position comes from it later.

Whose eyes? Three reference points

There is no single right height, because eyes are at different heights. Measured data gives three useful reference points.

Adults standing

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) measured 1,244 of its technical operations staff at 25 sites around the United States, and publishes the results in its human factors design standard. Eye height standing was measured from the floor to the outer corner of the eye.

A percentile tells you how many people fall below a figure. The 5th percentile woman's eyes are lower than those of 95 women out of 100 in the survey. This is a survey of one workforce, so treat it as a guide to the spread of heights, and look at the people in your own home too.

Adults sitting

The same FAA survey measured eye height sitting upright, from the seat to the outer corner of the eye. The median was 31.9 inches for men and 29.7 inches for women. To find where a seated person's eyes are in your room, add the height of the chair or sofa seat. Measure the seat with a tape; the result tells you how far below a standing adult's eyes a seated guest's eyes will be.

People using a wheelchair

The Smithsonian's guidelines say an adult man who uses a wheelchair has an average eye level between 43 and 51 inches above the finished floor. They mount small items at a centre height no higher than 40 inches, and explain that objects placed above 40 inches will be seen only from below by most seated and short viewers. For wall labels, which people read up close, the guidelines give 48 to 67 inches as comfortable for both seated and standing people, and a centre line at 54 inches as the best height for everyone.

Choosing your centre height

Put those numbers together and a range appears. Seated eyes in a wheelchair sit at 43 to 51 inches. Median standing eyes in the FAA survey sit at 59.8 and 65.0 inches. A centre height between those ranges suits a room where some people stand and some sit.

The hanging planner below starts at 57 inches. That is a starting point you can change. It sits above the 43 to 51 inch range for seated wheelchair users and below the median standing eye height of both women and men in the FAA survey. The Purrspectives article on dog wall art ideas uses a centre height of 60 inches for its examples, which sits 3 inches higher.

Adjust the figure for the room:

• A hallway or landing where everyone stands. Move the centre up toward the standing figures.
• A dining room or a sitting room. Move it down toward seated eyes. Sit in the chair you use most and ask someone to mark your eye level on the wall.
• A home where someone uses a wheelchair, or a child's room. Move it down toward 43 to 51 inches, and measure the actual eye height of the person who will look at it most.

From centre height to nail

Once you have the centre height, the nail position follows from two measurements of the frame.

1. Frame height. Measure the outside height of the finished frame, top edge to bottom edge. The page on how to measure a frame explains the outside size.
2. Wire drop. Turn the frame over. Pull the hanging wire up tight toward the top edge, as the nail will, and measure from the wire to the top edge of the frame.

Then:

Nail height = centre height + half the frame height − wire drop

The frame's top edge sits at the centre height plus half the frame height. The wire, and so the nail, sits one wire drop below that edge.

If the frame hangs from two D-rings on two separate hooks instead of a wire, the drop is the distance from the top edge of the frame to the top of the inside of each ring. Put two nails or hooks at that height, spaced the same distance apart as the rings. The page on picture hanging hardware explains why two points of support are safer than one.

Worked figures for the four print sizes

These figures use the planner's starting values: a centre height of 57 inches, a frame and mat border of 2 inches on each side, a wire drop of 3 inches, and each print hung upright.

Every row shares the same centre, so all four frames line up through the middle. The top edge climbs and the bottom edge falls as the frame grows.

Above a sofa, a bed or a sideboard

Furniture sets a floor for the bottom edge. The planner shows the gap between the top of the furniture and the bottom of the frame, and the frame's width as a percentage of the furniture's width.

Take a sofa back 34 inches high and 84 inches wide, the planner's starting values. At a 57 inch centre, the four framed sizes above leave gaps of 16, 13, 9 and 3 inches. The framed widths are 14, 19, 26 and 33 percent of the sofa's width. A 3 inch gap is tight for the largest size, because heads rest against a sofa back. You can raise the centre height or choose the next size down.

The Canadian Conservation Institute adds a safety point in its guide to storage and display of paintings: do not hang a picture where it can come into contact with furniture, doors, curtains or blinds. Check that a headboard, a lamp shade or a door that swings open cannot touch the frame.

Hallways and stairs

A hallway brings a second rule into play. The Smithsonian's guidelines say objects mounted on a wall must stick out no more than 4 inches, unless their lower edge is below 27 inches or above 80 inches from the floor. People who use a cane find objects by touching low edges, so a deep frame at waist height in a walkway is hard for them to detect. Measure the depth of your frame, including the hardware on its back, before you hang it in a walkway.

The Canadian Conservation Institute also advises against hanging paintings where they might be brushed against or touched by passers-by, and names narrow corridors and stairwells as examples. It warns against hanging a picture at a height where feet, knees, handbags or hands can bump it. On a narrow stair, that points to a small frame hung high enough to clear shoulders, or to a wider wall elsewhere.

If you do hang a portrait beside stairs, measure the centre height from the step directly below the middle of the frame, so the frame sits at the same height above the stairs that it would above a floor.

Mark the wall in five steps

1. Choose the centre height and write it down.
2. Measure the frame height and the wire drop.
3. Work out the nail height with the formula, or enter the numbers in the planner below.
4. Measure the nail height up from the floor and mark it lightly in pencil, then find the horizontal middle of the space.
5. Hang the frame, check it with a level, and step back to look from where people will stand or sit.

If you have not chosen a size yet, the four print sizes are listed on the pricing page, and the planner below draws each one to scale above your furniture.