What size wall art for a kid's room or nursery: a simple guide

Most wall art in kids' rooms is too small. A lone 8×10 in the middle of a big wall looks like it got lost on the way somewhere else. You don't need the biggest canvas in the store to fix that. Size the art to the furniture under it, hang it at a height that suits the room, and test it with painter's tape before you put a single hole in the wall.

Start with what's under it

The rule decorators use most is simple: art that hangs over a piece of furniture should be about two-thirds as wide as that furniture. Some people stretch it to three-quarters. Close is good enough. Nobody walks into a bedroom with a tape measure.

Rough math for common kids' furniture (measure yours, because these vary a lot):

• Twin bed. The mattress is 38 inches wide, a bit more with the frame. Two-thirds is about 25 to 27 inches of art.
• Full bed. A 54-inch mattress puts you around 36 inches.
• Kids' dresser. If yours is 36 inches wide, aim for about 24 inches of art.
• Low bookcase or toy bench. At 48 inches wide, that's about 32 inches.

The rule only talks about width, and that's where tall pieces get tricky.

Tall art over wide furniture

A lot of portraits are taller than they are wide. Hang a tall canvas centered over a bed and it can look like an exclamation point: fine over a narrow dresser, a little skinny over anything wide. You have three options. Go up a size so the narrow side gets closer to two-thirds. Hang it off-center, above the nightstand side, and let a lamp or a shelf balance the other half. Or move it to a wall where it doesn't have to line up with anything, which is often the better idea anyway, for reasons covered in how to hang a canvas in a kid's room safely.

Our four sizes, mapped to real walls

Dovelie canvases come in four sizes. Prices below are for the canvas alone; a floating frame adds to it, and the FAQ has the full list.

• 12×16 ($61.99). A shelf, a desk wall, a nursery wall, or one piece in a small group. Alone on a big empty wall, it will look small.
• 16×24 ($87.99). The everyday size for a kid's bedroom. Works over a dresser, a desk, or the side of a twin bed.
• 24×36 ($159.99). A playroom wall, the long wall of a bigger bedroom, or a family room. Two feet by three feet is bigger than it sounds, so tape it out first.
• 32×48 ($329.99). A statement piece. It wants a big wall with little in front of it, like a stair landing or a living room. In most kids' bedrooms it's too much.

How high to hang it

The standard advice for adults puts the center of a piece around 57 to 60 inches from the floor. An art consultant quoted in Livingetc recommends about 60 inches to the center, and when there's furniture below, leaving 6 to 12 inches between the top of the furniture and the bottom of the art.

A kid's room needs one more question: who is this for? A portrait that grandparents will stop and look at can go at adult height. Things the kid is meant to look at, like their own drawings, a map or a calendar, should come down. The simplest way to find the spot: have your child stand against the wall and put a small piece of tape at their eye level. Center their stuff a little above that mark, since a five-year-old will be a seven-year-old sooner than the paint wears out.

When the art hangs over furniture, the furniture wins. Keep the bottom edge 6 to 12 inches above the dresser top or headboard, wherever that puts the center.

The painter's tape test

1. Cut a sheet of kraft paper or a flattened shipping box to the size you're considering. Or just outline the rectangle on the wall with low-tack painter's tape.
2. Put it up at the height you think is right.
3. Leave it there for a day. Look at it from the doorway, from the bed, from where you sit to read at night.
4. Try the next size up the same way.

If you keep thinking the first one should be bigger, trust that. Too small is the more common mistake, and it's the one you can't fix without buying again. Taping two sizes side by side on the floor first also helps if your wall is busy.

Nurseries are their own case

In a nursery, the safety rule comes before any design rule: nothing heavy goes directly over the crib, and nothing goes within reach of it once the baby can pull up to standing. That rules out the most obvious spot, which is annoying. The good news is the wall the crib faces is often better. It's what the baby actually sees, and it's what you see from the rocking chair at 3am.

For most nursery walls, a 12×16 or a 16×24 is plenty. Over a changing table or dresser, use the two-thirds rule like anywhere else and hang it with proper hardware.

Groups versus one piece

If one big piece isn't in the budget, three smaller ones hung close together read as one shape. Treat the whole group as a single piece for the two-thirds rule, keep 2 to 3 inches between frames, and line up either the tops or the centers. Mixing a 12×16 with two of your kid's framed drawings in matching frames works better than three random prints, because the matching frames do the work of tying it together. There are more ideas like that in kids room wall ideas that feel personal.

A quick cheat sheet

• Over furniture: about two-thirds the width, 6 to 12 inches above the top.
• Open wall: center around 57 to 60 inches for grown-up viewing, lower for kid stuff.
• Nursery: not over the crib.
• Not sure between two sizes: tape both, and lean toward the bigger one.

If you're planning a portrait for the wall, you can see your child in a scene before you pick a size. Every scene is in all portraits, and the preview is free.