5 Tips for Choosing Art for Your Home

Choosing the right piece of art for your home can be an intimidating task, especially if you want to buy an original piece without knowing where to go, what to get and without breaking the bank!

I have been there, so I am familiar with the feeling. I’ve always loved art and photography so my problem wasn’t so much determining what I like and where to find it, (because great pieces for your home are hidden everywhere!!). I just didn’t want to break the bank! It can be tough to invest on art pieces if you are still young and have a mortgage to pay and kids to raise or if you are retired on a fixed income!

Fortunately for me, I found the right solution to buy the pieces I wanted for our home without getting deep into debt so I am going to share my tips with you here!

Before I start, It’s important you select art pieces, in any of its forms, that you love. Artwork helps define your personality and the character of your home! Do not compromise on your taste just because you believe you need to follow a certain trend or because your spouse only likes certain types and styles of art that don’t agree with your taste! The sky is really the limit when it comes to art! I guarantee you can find something that the entire family can enjoy!!

1. Consider different forms and style of Art.

Art is not only confined to walls and it’s not only a canvas or a framed paperwork. Art can be purchased, displayed and enjoyed as a sculpture, a tapestry, a rug and even handmade utensils and home decor objects in so many different materials. There is a difference between Art Form and Art style.

In broad terms, Art Form is defined by the used medium of expression, (Oil on Canvas, Sculptures, Photography, etc.), while Art Style defines the way a piece of art looks, its characteristics, (i.e. Inuit Art, Abstract Art, etc.).

The most common forms of artwork displayed in homes are:

– Paintings on Canvas

– Paperworks such as original or reproductions and prints of watercolours, graphites, sanguines, charcoals, chalk pencils and so on.

– Photography, whether it’s landscape, wildlife or aerial.

– Tapestry and Handwoven Wall Art

– Sculptures

– Other creative pieces; I have gone to the extent of using other things and making them into artwork for our home. As mentioned in one of my previous articles, plants wall decor are a great option for your walls.

No one says that only paintings can go on a wall. You define what is art for you and what works well for your home. If you want to display something in your home is because it means something to you and it can speak of you and your memories. I have used;

• Maps; I am from Milan, Italy. Since I now live on the other side of the    ocean, I found a map of the city, framed it and hung it on our wall.

• Posters; I bought two opera posters and one Botero Exhibit poster on our trips to Europe and I laminated them on a wood panel and hung them in three different spots of our home.

• Children crafts; I hung a couple of very colourful crafts of our children in our home. They are a great form of Primitive Art!!

• Personal pictures; If you love taking pictures and are good at it, you can definitely select your best photographs for your walls. While abstract and landscape photography is suitable for open  and public areas in your home, I would keep personal photography in the bedrooms.

• Calendar pages; there are some beautiful calendars out there and I bought more than once a calendar that I turned into artwork the year after. I just cut the month I really liked and framed it!

• Plants wall decor; in one of my previous articles I covered the many different ways to bring green to your walls, whether you purchase a moss wall or create your own hanging terrarium.

• Floating Bookshelves; these add a punch of colour to your walls and are an interesting way to organize your books!

2. Consider Artwork for every room type

You can place artwork in every room of your home. I would suggest different different forms, styles and proportions for different room typologies. What is suitable for a bedroom may not be suitable for a living room and vice versa. Let’s see how;

• Main Entrance; even though this is not a gathering area, do not under-estimate the importance of this space. It’s the entrance to your home, it’s the introduction to the rest of your home so you need to be careful and strategic about what you place in this area. Options could be; a beautifully framed mirror that can be useful for that one last check on your look before you go out and to make the space bigger and brighter; an introductory piece similar to what you have in the rest of your home as introduction to what is next to come in the rest of the house; a motivational quote or inspiration sign. These are quite popular lately. They are not my first choice but they can be nicely custom hand made.

• Living Room; this is your public display area so this is the space where you want to place a sculpture, a tapestry or a large canvas. Based on the layout of your room and size of your walls, you will determine if a big canvas is better than a group of four or six pieces or if you should divide your big empty wall into areas; one central area for a big canvas, one side area with three pieces and one other side area with a medium size piece.

• Kitchen; this area of the house is often left behind when it comes to art. If you live in an open concept home, just make sure you’ve distributed your artworks to include the kitchen area, even though these walls are often exclusively filled with cabinets. If your kitchen is an independent room, consider placing some art on your walls that recalls some of the food or beverages you make, such as botanical prints depicting herbs, or postcards of fancy Parisian Bistros and Coffee Shops.

• Bedrooms; these are the more private and intimate rooms in your home. It’s very common to hang personal pictures in these rooms, such as engagement and wedding pictures as well as baby and family photos. Pictures are typically hung over the bed in Master Bedrooms or on the opposite wall. Over the bed is a good place to experiment with ledge shelves on top of which you can rotate several pictures and alternate them with small plants and candles for something different. Whatever you do in here make sure the subjects and tones of your art work is subdued and soothing. This should be a calm, relaxing and sleep inducing environment.

For kids rooms, I have seen book shelves in all sort of shapes that can definitely decorate your walls. Other option in here are to cut pages of old calendars or books with your kids favourite character or animal and frame them creating a cluster or a row of pictures.

• Bathrooms; like kitchens, bathrooms are often neglected in terms of art . Much of the walls are taken by mirrors and showers and if you have tiled walls, you definitely don’t want to put holes in it! Bathrooms are great places for motivational quotes. However, this is one space where you can be totally creative. You can hang anything from pictures to vintage postcards and magazine covers to even travel memories such as, starfish and shells!

3. Think about proportions, proper placement and grouping.

When you consider buying or commissioning art for your home, you consider the type of art form and style you like as well as the ideal location for it. The type of room you place your artwork in, size of wall you are working with and even the type of art you buy, will determine the size and proportion of your piece and the placement on the wall.

Living Rooms and Master Bedrooms generally have the biggest walls. 

You need to decide if you want your artwork to be the focal point of the room or simply an accent. 

Generally speaking, a very large canvas placed in the middle of your Living Room wall will become the focal point of the room. The eyes will automatically go to it and the surrounding furnishings will complement your artwork.

On the other hand, if you decide to divide your Living Room large walls into areas and have a cluster of three paintings on one side, a bigger painting in the middle and a medium sized individual painting on the other side, all these pieces of art will become complimentary to each other and the furnishings in the room.

Clusters of artworks can be assembled by a common theme; either the different pieces are all similar in subjects and tones and have the same exact frames; or they can have similar subjects and tones with frames of the same colour but different finish and shape; or they can be completely different subjects and tones with the same exact frame.

Clusters of artworks can be distributed in different ways depending on the proportion of the walls you place them in. They can all be aligned horizontally or vertically, in one or more rows.

4. Think framing.

Choosing the right frame for your artwork is extremely important. The wrong frame can literally ruin your artwork! So why this is only tip #4 and not #2? Because a frame should be selected not only based on the artwork you chose, but also based on its context. The same piece of art can have different frames based on where it will be placed. This is what you should keep in mind when you choose a frame for your art piece;

• Artwork itself; even though the context is important, the subject you are framing comes first. You are not going to pick a hand made shell frame for a caribou print.

• Your home style; try to be consistent with your home style, (country home, beach house, city apartment, cottage in the woods).

• The area it will be placed in; you may want to consider different frames for Living Room and Bathrooms. Your Living Room frame may be selected to go with other pieces you have in it, such as furniture upholstery and rugs or wall colours.

• The context within the area; is the frame part of a cluster or frames or is it an individual frame? Perhaps if it is in a cluster, all the frames are simpler and need to match, while an individual frame can be more complex.

5. Consider budget and cost options.

Cost is one of the major deterrents preventing people from buying art in galleries or from a local artist. However, there are ways to get unique artwork for your home without having to buy mass produced canvases from IKEA and other big box stores.

If you are determined to buy from an artist or a gallery, you can search the web for local sources. Once you go to galleries you’ll have an idea on which artist’s work you really like. You can get a bio and info on the artist from the gallery Owner and contact the artist directly to ask if they are considering payment plans for their pieces. Its more common than you think…I, myself bought a few prints this way. Some artists don’t mind at all guaranteed monthly cash! You can do the same with galleries. If the gallery owner owns the artworks on display rather than just featuring local artists, you can ask if payment plans are an option. I have done that too and the best part was that the gallery owner helped me make the proper custom frames for the pieces I bought from him at a lower cost!

If buying from galleries or directly form artists is not an option for you, consider make artwork pieces yourself! As mentioned before in this article, there are several alternatives to original art pieces. You can get creative with pages from beautiful calendars, vintage postcards and prints. The art relies on the composition of your subject, the way you frame it and where you place it!

At this point you may say; “I get all this Cecilia. I know what I like, I know where I want to place it but where and how do I find the right artist or piece of art for my home?”.

If you haven’t found it yet, you can search the web for local Art Councils that list all your area’s artists or search for local galleries. Another way to search for artists and art these days is social media! I’ve found the most incredible and talented artists right on Instagram! Most of their pages are linked to Etsy so you can shop their art internationally from there!

Here are my favourites!!

@lepetitpoint.ywg for amazing hand woven wall art!

@kristinakemenikova for beautiful plant illustrations

@niceartpeople for beautiful prints

@kristenaleida for beautiful watercolour cards and prints

@miriamrudolphart for beautiful prints

I hope you found this article helpful, and as always, feel free to ask me any questions…I’ll be glad to get back to you with an answer!!