Interior Artwork and Display Planning Checklist

List every piece you own that you intend to display, noting its rough size in your own terms and whether it is upright or landscape.

Orientation alone rules out a great many walls, and it is the fastest useful thing you can record.

Photograph each piece against a plain background and keep those photographs with the notes for the room it might go in.

Pieces described in words are imagined differently by everybody, and a plain photograph ends that immediately.

Separate the pieces you are certain about from the ones you keep meaning to move on, since a wall planned around a doubtful piece is wasted effort.

Owners are often more decisive about this than they expect once forced to put it in writing.

Write against each piece whether it is already framed and whether you would want that changed, because framing alters what a piece needs around it.

A reframed piece can change size and weight enough to affect where it can go.

Whether a piece should be reframed or reglazed, and what that would involve, is a question for a framer or conservator.

Flag the pieces that belong to somebody else, are on loan, or may leave the household at some point.

A wall arranged around a borrowed piece has to work again once that piece goes back.

Record anything you expect to acquire, so that a wall is not planned as though the collection were finished.

Collections that keep growing need an approach to hanging that can absorb additions without being redone.

Note what each wall you are considering appears to be made of as far as you can tell, and mark that clearly as an assumption.

Sounding a wall by knocking on it is a starting point and nothing more.

What a wall is built from and what it can carry must be established by a qualified professional before anything is hung on it.

Record where existing hooks, fixings and old filled holes are, since they show where previous occupants successfully hung things.

A pattern of old fixings is informative, though it says nothing about what was hung there or how well it held.

Write down which walls you believe carry services, and keep that firmly as a question rather than a conclusion you would act on.

Cables and pipes do not always run where they are expected to, and a wall gives no reliable clue from the outside.

What runs inside a wall cannot be established by looking, so anything to be drilled or fixed must be checked by a qualified professional first.

Mark where a wall is interrupted by a switch, an outlet, a vent or a control, because these decide what can sit there.

A wall that reads as blank in a photograph is frequently not blank at all once you stand in front of it.

Single out the heaviest piece you own and keep it apart from everything else, since weight is where this stops being an owner decision.

One heavy piece changes the conversation entirely and needs to be raised early rather than at the point of hanging.

Fixing anything heavy is a matter for a qualified professional, who must establish what the wall is and what is appropriate for it.

Ask what information about a wall and a piece a framer or installer needs from you before they would agree to hang anything.

Knowing what they will ask for saves an entire round of correspondence and often a wasted visit.

Stand and then sit where people really settle in each room, and note what is directly in front of them at eye level.

Most art is hung for somebody standing in the doorway and then looked at by somebody sitting down.

Record what you see first on entering each room, since that wall does more work than any other in the space.

The entry view is the one visitors remember and the one owners most often leave until last.

Distinguish the walls that are only ever seen from a distance from the ones you pass close to, because that changes what suits them.

Fine detail is wasted on a wall seen only from across a room, and overwhelming on one you brush past.

Record where a piece would be seen mainly from a seated position and where mainly from standing, and note the difference.

This single distinction settles more hanging-height disagreements than any general convention.

Work out what furniture will stand in front of each wall and how much of that wall is genuinely left uncovered.

Available wall is almost always less than it looks once the room is furnished.

Be honest about which walls are already crowded by doors and openings, and about whether anything sensibly fits there at all.

Forcing a piece onto a broken wall is a decision that is regretted quickly and quietly.

Note where direct sunlight lands on a wall during the day, and treat that wall carefully for anything that could be affected by it.

Direct sun on a wall is easy to observe and easy to overlook once a piece is already hanging there.

What a particular piece can tolerate in terms of light and warmth is a question for a framer or conservator rather than for you.

Record which rooms are used mainly after dark, since the artificial light there is the light a piece will normally be seen in.

A piece chosen for how it looks by day may be almost invisible during the hours the room is actually occupied.

Look for the places where an existing light throws a reflection across glazing, and note from which seat that reflection is visible.

Reflection is position-dependent, which is why it is missed by whoever hangs the piece and noticed by whoever sits opposite.

Find out whether any lighting in the room can be aimed, and ask what altering or adding lighting positions would involve.

Lighting for art usually has to be decided before finishes are made good, not afterwards.

Anything involving altering, adding or moving lighting is work for a suitably qualified professional and should be raised early.

Check whether a piece has glass in front of it, and where you can see yourself in it from the seat opposite.

Glazing choice is one of the few decisions that can be tested simply by sitting down and looking.

Ask what a lighting supplier needs to know about the pieces and their positions before proposing anything for them.

Giving them positions and sizes early avoids a scheme that lights the room but not the work in it.

List the objects that need a surface rather than a wall, and note their rough footprint and height in your own terms.

Objects are consistently underestimated in depth, which is what determines whether a shelf works at all.

Sort the objects into those that get handled and those that are only looked at, because those two ask for entirely different positions.

Something picked up regularly needs to be within easy reach; something fragile probably should not be.

Note which surfaces in each room are already occupied by something else by the end of a normal day.

Display surfaces quietly become the place where post, keys and cups land, whatever was intended for them.

Record whether children or animals reach any surface you are considering, and note what that means for what could stand there.

Reach changes over time in a household with children, which is worth stating rather than assuming a fixed situation.

Where fragile or heavy objects can safely be placed in a household with children or animals is worth discussing with a qualified professional.

Decide for each object whether it needs to sit against a wall, be seen from all sides, or be looked down into.

This decides whether a shelf, a table or a cabinet is the right home for it long before anything is chosen.

Pick out the objects you own but have never actually displayed, and write down why that is.

The reason is usually practical and will apply just as much in the new arrangement unless it is addressed.

Note where a screen sits in each room and what it does to the wall around it and to the seating in front of it.

A screen usually claims the same wall that art wants, and the conflict is better resolved on paper.

Trace where cables currently run and where they are visible, since they frequently decide what can hang nearby.

Cable routes are the practical constraint that undoes an otherwise settled arrangement.

Anything involving moving or concealing electrical cabling is work for a suitably qualified professional and must not be planned around assumptions.

Note whether anything you intend to hang would sit above a heat source, and keep that as a question for a professional.

Position above a heat source affects what is appropriate there, and it is a common default place for a picture.

Whether anything may be hung above a heat source is a matter for a qualified professional and for whoever supplied the appliance.

Name everything else competing for the same wall, such as a clock, a mirror, a noticeboard or a run of shelving.

These accumulate without ever being decided, and a wall ends up holding whatever arrived first.

Say plainly whether a mirror is being considered as a piece in its own right or as a way of moving light around, since those lead to different positions.

A mirror hung for light needs to relate to an opening; one hung as a piece does not.

Record which walls you have left blank deliberately, and keep them that way if that is genuinely what you meant.

Blank walls get filled by default unless somebody has written down that they are meant to stay empty.

Record what you own that will not be displayed, and write down where it is going to live instead.

Storage for pieces is usually forgotten until the moment a room is being cleared for work.

Note whether anything stored needs to be kept flat, upright or away from damp, and ask a framer or conservator what applies to it.

Storage conditions vary by medium and framing, and guessing at them tends to be discovered much later.

How a piece should be stored is a question for a framer or conservator, since the answer depends on the medium and the framing.

Settle whether you intend to change displays around, and note what that would mean for fixings and for storing what is not up.

Rotation is a genuine requirement that changes both the hanging approach and the storage needed.

Go through the collection for pieces that already have condition problems, and photograph them before anything is moved or wrapped.

Photographs taken before a move settle a great many later questions about when damage occurred.

Record whether any piece has documentation with it, and keep the two together rather than in different places.

Paperwork separated from a piece is very hard to reunite with it afterwards.

Ask who would move anything needing specialist handling, and what they would need to know about the piece beforehand.

Handling arrangements have to be made before a room is cleared, not while somebody is standing in it.

Moving, packing or storing anything fragile or valuable should be discussed with a suitable specialist rather than arranged informally.