Before you buy a painting from any art gallery, think about the last picture you took down. Chances are it hadn't worn out. It was too small for the wall, it never suited the room, or it hung somewhere it couldn't stay. Each of those can be settled before you buy.
The takeaway: choose the painting by the wall, not the wall by the painting. Measure the space before you browse, pick a size and orientation from the centimetres rather than the photo, let the room settle the style, and hang it at a sensible height, away from direct sun, heaters, air conditioners and damp.
The worked example is Ro Gallery, an online art gallery that sells original paintings with prices, descriptions and online ordering. Ro Gallery lists 40 artworks across ten styles, four in each, at the time of writing. Each listing gives the style, a short description that suggests rooms or spaces for the piece, a default size in centimetres and a price in Egyptian pounds (EGP): the numbers a wall decision needs.
Disclosure: this guide is sponsored by Ro Gallery, the online gallery used as its worked example. What it reports about Ro Gallery comes from its own listings, read in October 2026; Just Green has not inspected its paintings.
Why choosing once beats replacing later
Our guide on when to replace and when to keep using sorts possessions into two groups: things that use energy every day they run, and things like furniture and kitchenware that cost something once, when they were made. For the second group, the lower-waste habit is to keep them until they genuinely fail. A painting on your wall belongs there.
That isn't a claim that any painting is green; every painting, frame and fixing takes materials to make. The claim is narrower: the artwork you don't replace doesn't set off the next purchase. Keeping something only works if you chose it well, and that is what the rest of this guide is for.
Measure the wall before you look at a single painting
Start with a tape measure, not a browser tab, and write down three numbers:
- Clear width: the stretch of wall the painting will own, between door frames, windows, corners or switches.
- Clear height: from the floor, or from the top of the furniture below, to the ceiling or the next obstacle.
- Furniture height: the top of the sofa back, sideboard, headboard or desk under the spot.
Note what the wall faces, too: a window that throws direct sun on it, or a radiator, heater or air-conditioning unit nearby. That decides the placement step and may rule a wall out before you spend anything.
Then make the size visible. Bob Vila's guide to how high to hang pictures suggests cut-to-size paper taped to the wall when planning a group of pictures, and the trick works for one painting too. Tape up the size you have in mind and live with it for a few days.
Choose a size and orientation from the centimetres
An online gallery shows every painting at roughly the same size on screen, so judge scale from the listed dimensions, held against the paper on your wall, never from the photo.
Ro Gallery's listings give the width first: Tide Lines, which its listing calls a horizontal format, is 80 × 40 cm. At the time of writing, most of the default sizes fall into three rough bands:
- Small, 40 × 50 to 50 × 70 cm: including Monstera Leaf, Wild Peony Study, Ivory Block and Olive Grove.
- Medium, 60 × 80 to 70 × 100 cm: the largest group.
- Large, 80 × 120 cm and up: Echoes in Indigo, Whisper in Bronze and the Statement Pieces style.
A few sit outside them, such as Line & Pause (60 × 60 cm), Prism Shift (70 × 70 cm) and Tide Lines.
Orientation matters as much as size. This table pairs common walls with shapes from the listings:
| Your wall | Shape to look for | Examples from the listings |
|---|---|---|
| Above a long sofa, bench or sideboard | Landscape (wider than tall) | Tide Lines (80 × 40 cm), Desert Crown (120 × 80 cm) |
| A narrow wall between a door and a window | Portrait (taller than wide) | Profile in Shadow (50 × 70 cm), Morning Mist (60 × 90 cm) |
| A small wall, a desk corner, or one of a pair | Square or small | Ivory Block (50 × 50 cm), Line & Pause (60 × 60 cm), Prism Shift (70 × 70 cm) |
| A double-height wall | Large portrait | Monument (100 × 150 cm) |
Each listing also carries its price, so you can weigh size against budget on one screen: Ivory Block (50 × 50 cm), for example, was listed at 2,900 EGP at the time of writing.
Ro Gallery's listings let you choose the default size or enter a custom width and height in centimetres, so if no default fits your outline, type in your measured numbers, not a guess. With any seller, ask what a non-standard size changes before you rely on it.
Read an art gallery listing for size and room
Style is the first filter. Ro Gallery's Landscape style is described as "Horizon lines, desert light, and quiet nature scenes that bring calm and depth to any wall." Its Botanical style is "perfect for bedrooms, dining spaces, and wellness studios", its Minimal style offers "Restrained palettes, clean geometry, and negative space for contemporary Egyptian homes", and its Statement Pieces are "Large-format originals designed to anchor a room".
The second filter is the room each painting's own description suggests:
| Room | Painting (style) | Default size | Its listing suggests |
|---|---|---|---|
| Living room, above a sofa | Tide Lines (Coastal) | 80 × 40 cm | it "creates a calming rhythm above sofas and banquettes" |
| Dining room | Olive Grove (Landscape) | 50 × 70 cm | "Perfect above a dining table or in a sunroom" |
| Bedroom or reading corner | Morning Mist (Landscape) | 60 × 90 cm | "bedrooms and reading nooks" |
| Hallway or entry | Profile in Shadow (Portrait) | 50 × 70 cm | "above a console table or in a hallway gallery" |
| A pair | Pressed Garden (Botanical) | 60 × 80 cm | "easy to style in pairs" |
| One piece or two | Parallel Study (Geometric) | 50 × 70 cm | "Works solo or as a diptych" |
Treat a room note as a suggestion, not a fit test: "above sofas" still has to match your sofa and your paper outline. Weigh it against placement, too. Olive Grove's note suggests a sunroom, and Te Papa's care guide, quoted below, says light can cause deterioration, so in a sunroom pick the wall that gets the least direct sun.
Choose from the words and the centimetres, not the image. A phone photo can't show scale, and colour shifts from one screen to the next.
Hang it at a height you won't redo
A common rule of thumb, from Bob Vila's guide, is to "Position your picture so that it is 57 inches on-center": about 145 cm from the floor to the middle of the painting, by our conversion. The guide adds that "it's not a hard and fast rule", and it gives two adjustments:
- When furniture would partly cover it, such as a high-backed chair or a tall desk, the guide suggests the bottom of the frame sit six to eight inches above the top of that piece, about 15 to 20 cm by our conversion.
- For a pair or a diptych, put the centre of the whole group, not of each piece, at the 57-inch level.
A worked example, with illustrative numbers: on an open wall, a painting 90 cm tall, such as Morning Mist, centred at about 145 cm runs from about 100 to 190 cm off the floor. Above a sofa with an 85 cm back, a painting 40 cm tall, such as Tide Lines, centred at about 145 cm runs from about 125 to 165 cm, well clear of the sofa, so the 57-inch line still holds. Only when something tall would hide part of it, say a 135 cm headboard, does the bottom edge move up to 15 to 20 cm above it: here, 150 to 155 cm.
For anything large, Te Papa's advice is to "use at least two people". Before you buy hooks, find out what the painting weighs and how it is meant to hang; that decides what goes into the wall.
Place it where it can stay
Height decides how a painting looks; placement decides whether it can stay. Te Papa, New Zealand's national museum, says in its guide on how to care for paintings: "Protect paintings from light, which can cause deterioration." It notes that natural, halogen and fluorescent bulbs emit ultraviolet light, which can fade pigments, and it says to "Keep paintings away from fireplaces, air conditioners, and heaters", because "Fluctuations in temperature can cause canvas to expand and contract, damaging the surface over time."
The Buffalo Bill Center of the West, in its piece on caring for your treasures, adds: "keep collections away from fireplaces, turn down the heat, and avoid drafts. Do not keep treasures in spaces like damp basements or bathrooms".
That rules out the wall opposite the big window, the one above the radiator, the one in the air conditioner's path, the one by a draughty door, and the bathroom. What's left is usually an inside wall in a living room, bedroom or hallway.
A wall-first checklist before you order
- Measured: clear width, clear height and furniture height are written down.
- Outlined: a paper template at the listed size has been up for a few days and still looks right.
- Shaped: landscape over long furniture, portrait for narrow walls, square for small spots.
- Matched: the style description and the room note both fit the room.
- Height planned: the centre at about 145 cm, or, where furniture would cover it, the bottom edge 15 to 20 cm above the furniture.
- Safe spot: no direct sun, heater, fireplace, air conditioner, draught or damp.
- Hardware matched: you know the weight and how it hangs, and what a custom size changes, if you entered one.
Pause, then choose
The habit that does the most work costs nothing: the waiting-list pause from our guide to eco living habits that stick. Put the painting on a list, leave the paper outline up for a week, and see whether you still want it. If you do, you'll order knowing the size, the wall, the height and the spot.
When you're ready, start on Ro Gallery's home page, where you can browse all artwork or filter by style, and search the collection. Begin with the style that suits the room, then open the listings whose default size matches your outline.
FAQ
How big should a painting be for my wall?
There's no single right ratio, so test rather than guess. Tape up a paper outline at the size you're considering and live with it for a few days. If it looks lost, go up a size band; if it crowds the furniture or the corners, go down one.
How high should I hang a painting?
A common rule of thumb, credited here to Bob Vila, puts the centre 57 inches from the floor, about 145 cm by our conversion. Where furniture such as a high-backed chair would partly cover it, Bob Vila's guide suggests the bottom edge sit 15 to 20 cm above the furniture instead (our conversion). For a pair, centre the whole group at that height.
Where should I not hang an original painting?
Not in direct sun, near heaters, fireplaces or air-conditioning units, in a draught, or in a bathroom or other damp room. Te Papa and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West both warn against light, heat and damp.
What if the painting still doesn't feel right once it's up?
That's the honest risk of buying any painting you haven't seen in your own room. A paper outline settles size and position, but it can't show colour, texture or how light falls on the surface. Measuring and placing well remove the surprises you can control; the rest is taste, and the waiting-list pause is the cheapest guard against an impulse buy.