Picking the right piece of art can add another unique element to your household. Even if you’re not an art connoisseur, we’re going to provide you with some helpful tips to make this process that much easier for you.
DECISION
Before you head online or to the store to pick out some wall art, we need to figure out where we’re going to place them first. Hopefully, by this point in your interior design journey, you’ve established a theme that you are going to follow throughout your home. This will help give you some confidence and inspiration when picking your art pieces.
Take a stroll through your home and imagine where you would like to place potential pieces of art up on your walls. While brainstorming your ideas, consider what other pieces you can put around your wall art that could potentially complement each other. For example, if its a wall in the corner with not much surrounding it, you may want to assemble a collection of wall art pieces to create a small gallery in that area. Or, if a space is horizontal and narrow, live above a hutch or bed frame, you may want to consider to get a horizontal art piece instead of vertical to add to the space.
Speaking of spacing, we want to keep in mind the amount of space we have to work with. Measurements don’t have to be exact, but a good estimate for the shapes and sizes of pieces you’re looking for will help make the process of shopping and purchasing much more efficient and quick.
SELECTION
Selecting your art can be done in a couple of different ways – on the internet or in the store. A lot of you may choose the internet because of the easy accessibility that can be done in the comfort of your own home. In addition, the internet allows you to create virtual mood boards of potential looks you are considering in your process, making it easier to visualize in your home. Shopping on art sites allow you to save pictures based on size, looks, and color palettes that best suit you. Searching by size on the internet is a good way to make sure that you not only like the piece you are looking at but it also ensures that it will fit in the space on your wall that was designated for it.
Going to the store in person is a different experience that may be a little more tedious. Though you can see exactly what you are looking for, it’s harder to compare to other pieces in other stores that you may think will complement each other. You may also have to go with a measuring tape, which may slow down your selection process. With that being said, if you’re in fact an art connoisseur, this may be a process that you do in fact enjoy.
Different strokes for different folks. Get it? Art? Strokes? Paintbrush?
SEPARATE ART BY ROOM
If you’ve decided to shop online, send saved pictures to your phone in which you are interested in purchasing. After transferring them to your phone, you can now go to the different rooms in your house and place your phone up against the wall to get a better feel of how it may look in the rooms you’ve selected. Once you’ve decided if the art piece will fit or not, you can make notes in your phone and save them, making the next steps of this process that much easier.
Even though we’re still in the deciding phase, we want our house guests to get a different vibe in every room that they enter. So take this into consideration and try not to put the same art pieces in multiple rooms, as this will take away from the effect of freshness if they see things twice.
PRINT OUT COPIES
We’re getting closer to having real paintings on your wall. Until then, we’ll have to deal with printed copies for us to better visualize what they could look like. While making these mental notes, be sure to also jot them down on a piece of paper highlighting what room you could see them hanging in.
Once you’ve decided where these printed pieces will go, tape them on the wall to give a better representation of what it may look like next to other objects in the room. This will help evoke feelings out of you, giving you the ability to make a decision of if the picture in your head match reality. Be sure to take a picture so you don’t forget where you placed it.
LEAVE YOUR PRINTING ON THE WALL
Once you’ve made a decision on which room will be hosting your art, leave the printed pieces of art on the all for the week so you can get a better feel for it. From different times of day and different moods, you will be able to make a better-informed decision based on this tactic. It’s important to set a time limit on this so you don’t completely forget about it and not take the next step, which is deciding on purchasing the art piece or not.
USE HOUSEHOLD ITEMS TO DETERMINE PHYSICAL REFERENCE POINT
Using things such as cardboard to get a reference of the actual size of the art piece will help you make a better final decision. For example, if you’re looking at getting a big or small piece of art, you want to know if it will take up the amount of space you anticipated before purchasing. We want to be prepared in making the best decision possible, and this gives you better clarity to do so. These reference pieces allow you to play your pictures directly on them giving you the option to move things around to desired locations on your wall.
CONGRATULATIONS
Congrats! You are now ready to make the purchase of your wall art to add to your beautiful home!
Did these steps help?