Hanging art and the art of procrastination.

well...my only help from the sound of it here is hang them from the ceiling...could be interesting though.

get you a stud finder, rabbit. Then you just run the finder around the wall until it has an erection (its a magnet in a sealed capsule). That point is a nail in a stud. Then find another stud. and you can see the spacing between. If your art is heavy, i wouldnt use the plaster board as a support (are you in a seismically active part of Oz?) .

Id use the studs as hanger points. Drill the screws for the picture hangers

OR(even cooler)

Put a museum rail along the top of the room and use the brass hanger rods to hang the pictures. This way all the works in one room appear unified and its easy getting them all at the same level without detroying the drywall.

Deb

I can appreciate your concerns.
My new little Victorian place is brick, with plastered walls. So drilling holes into the walls for my framed artworks was a SERIOUS business & meant that I should be very sure of where I wanted each picture to hang, perhaps permanently (or at least semi-permanently).
The best advice I can offer is don't hang the blighters unless you are pretty sure you want them in particular spots for quite a while. If this means waiting till after new furniture is bought, etc., well so be it. Better than having your walls riddled with unwanted holes all over the place, requiring mending.

Curbing my own impatience was not easy. Undersatement! But I'm glad I did, because I changed my mind about the placements MANY times, as I got used to the place & bought new furniture & fittings. As well, I've had to have the previous holes (from the previous owner) repaired. (For some reason all his stuff was hung incredibly high.) If I'd added to these without properly thinking it through it would have created a big mess to fix.

A suggestion: Why not invite the 2 chaps around for drinks & nibblies & discuss all the ramifications of the potential work with them?

Can't help you here Deb since I've always been afraid of this myself, but thanks for asking the question ;-) Now, I'll get some answers myself.

Oh - the chaps will be wined and dined, bless 'em - but will, believe me, be of no use in the where to put stuff department!

THREE ears it's been, Msolga! THREE years!

Farmerman - I can't just hang stuff where the studs are!

can you tell me a little more about the museum rail?

Most of the stuff is wall hangings, and masks and such-like, rather than paintings.

Anyone know how to get the hanger smeggers out yet?

Stuff needs to be at lots of different levels, Farmerman.

Thanks for your ideas so far, folks!

I'd like to know how to get those hanger smeggers out myself. Seems to me that once they're in, they're not going anywhere, but what do I know.

Never mind about the 3 ears, D!
You are a busy person, concerned with the more important things in life! ... Besides, maybe adjusting to your new home is taking time! (Were you very attached to your previous abode & location?)
Trust me, it will all happen in time! One day, probably while on holiday, it will all fall into place. You will know what you want & will act! You are just figuring out how to make your new home a Dlowan home & you've got the most important things (i.e, cats & computer) right. The rest will follow!
In my case it meant getting rid of some much-liked pieces of furniture, paintings, etc. , which were perfect for a much bigger house (Cal. Bung.) when moving into this tiny Victorian cottage. Ah, time & adjustment! But of course, all of this involves $$$$$$
Good luck!

In a decade, maybe? waaaaah!

Nah, much earlier than that!

gday mate (always wanted to say that)


Museum railing is a set of long brass square rods on which are some sliding hangers that are tightened into place on the rod with a spanner.(wrench to me). The rods which are about 1/4 " in diameter are hung onto this railing that is placed around the top of the room walls. This railing is wood and looks like moulding except that it has a lip onto which are hung the brass rods. The railing is hammered into place like any moulding. (paint it before hanging unless you can paint without hogging up your walls The rods are meant to be exposed and two rods bear the weight of easch poster etc. The point is, that the rods give a visual anchor to the paintings, instead of hiding the picture hangers, you openly display them like many museums do. You can hang the pix at diff elevations and can move them about any where in the room without boogering the walls.The choice on how you wish to hang them is yours
Ask ossobuco or Lightwizard about these hangers, they own galleries.

We have these hangers in one room where weve got a lot of art hanging and we can hang 2 sets of paintings on a set of rods (assuming the frames are the same sizes) or you can have separated hanger rods. We think it looks very neat with this system. A framer that I use told me to have some parts of the paintings at a same elevation, like line up the tops or the bottoms , or line up the tops with the bottoms of others. This gives a visual anchor and unity to all the art and gives a sense of harmony.

If you hang the pictures on the studs you wont need to drill big holes to use those horrible drywall hangers with the giant folding wing nut in the back., youll only need to hammer a picture hanger with an accompanying nail right into the stud, and since the studs are usually on 16" centers (Is that the standard in Australia?), you can have lots of hanging area in the room

Thanks Farmerman, but that won't work in my place - it is ultramodern with no cornicing - and would not look good with anything up there - do stud-finders cost much? I have a feeling mine are further apart than that. You can go into metal ones, right?

What's she need a stud finder for? She's got two of them coming over to hang her pictures...

you have to put on your creativity hat . Many really modern homes use these brass hangers cauz they have a contemporary look with a certain style corner board. Do you have metal studs?? then most of the metal studs I know of use Aluminum posts, so a stud finder (usually around 4 dollars) may not work unless they have steel clips for the gypsum board.

Seal, her two stud finders are just gonna stand there and point at each other so that wont help.

LOL!

Goddamn modern places!

You know, I had a perfectly good cement wall on one side of the place - and I would have been mega-happy just to have that left as was, and painted it. I would have had INCHES of extra floor space, too! Far easier to hang stuff on that....

Not so much on the floor...that is where it is hanging NOW.

What is a corner board?

Maybe it is time to have a real man-fest, and invite my two architect friends to dinner, and just mention the hanging problems casually.....they would get into competitive problem solving, and their partners and I could sit back and enjoy our wine, and they would come back with a solution!

They covered all my lovely concrete pillars with smegging gyprock, too! I would have been happy with an industrial look - wonder if taking it off would be a problem legally, hmmmmmmmm. Wish I had thought faster....

I live in a building, all seventies concrete and massive structural features, that was converted from the Mines and Energy Dept.'s offices into apartments.