Hanging Photographs and Keeping Them Straight

If you read my last post, you know that I went to Cristy's home recently to hang 16 prints. I had worked out an arrangement in Photoshop and showed up at her house with hammer and level in hand. They all needed to be level and straight or it was going to look really bad.

Now keeping things straight is not my strong suit, as Neil will tell you, so I knew I was in trouble!

I usually hang prints with picture wire on a small nail and I know that if you use two nails a distance apart, the frame will stay in place much better than with one nail in the center. Then I looked at this project and thought about putting 32 nail holes in the wall. I knew that the 32 holes would quickly become 64 (or more!) as I found that the position of some of the images wasn't quite right. Yikes! I am just not that patient!

My solution was to use one nail to hang each print. I double checked the spacing and look of the arrangement as I went along (I did have to move a couple of nails). Then I whipped out the level and when I was confident that each print was straight, I used a ball of Stick-Tak behind one corner of the print and pressed it against the wall. This is the stuff that college students use to put posters up that won't damage walls.

Voila! The prints will stay straight and won't have to be repositioned every time someone slams a door! I am so brilliant!