FAQ

Wait what is this?

It's a simple way to hang art at a really aesthestic height on your wall, specifically 57 inches to the centerline of the piece.

What do you mean the centerline?

Like, imagine you cut your art in half, at its belly. That's the centerline.

But, why?

It looks real nice. Like, for real. When people visit your house they will think "damn I am jealous of how nice this place looks".

No but why 57 inches?

The consensus seems to be that 57 inches maps pretty well to the average eye-level-height. For most people it feels like they can scan the room and everything lines up. This satisfies some weird internal need humans have for order and pleasantness.

I think I'm pretty good at this though.

Man, I hate to break this to you... Most people think "I am just hanging art on the wall, I'll just eyeball it" and it looks terrible. It's kind of a hassle to hang up art in the first place. Don't skimp on this step.

Why do I need an app for this?

You don't, really. You can do the calculations yourself. If it's just one piece of art, you just do the following:

1. Measure the height of your art and divide it in half (we'll call it divided-art)
2. Measure the distance from the top of the art to the wire (make sure the wire is taught) (we'll call it nail height)
3. Take the divided-art measurement minus the nail-height
4. Add that to 57 inches
5. Put a nail in the wall at that height.

This is really not complicated for a single piece, it's just annoying to do. This is ultimately what you're doing:

That said, if you want to do this for multiple pieces, it's a huge pain in the ass.

Wait what do you mean the taught wire or nail height thing?

Basically this:

I want to understand what this would take for multiple pieces

Yeah, I get it. I did too. This is what you do for two of them. Take a deep breath!

First things first, realize two things:

• We are treating the two pieces as a single "piece" in terms of centerline. So, the height of both pieces plus the space between them is the total "height", and the centerline is that divided by two.
• We need to figure out the nail height for these two pieces based on that centerline

Top painting:

1. Add the heights of both pieces and the gap to get the combined height.
2. Take half of that; this is the offset from the centerline to the top/bottom.
3. From the museum centerline height, subtract that half to land at the bottom of the stack.
4. From that bottom: add the bottom piece’s height, add the gap, then add (top piece height − top piece nail offset). The result is the nail height for the top painting.

nail_top = museum_center − (combined/2) + bottom_height + gap + (top_height − top_nail_offset) ≡ museum_center + (combined/2) − top_nail_offset

Bottom painting:

1. Get the combined stack height: top height + bottom height + gap. → 20 + 50 + 4 = 74.
2. Take half to find the center offset. → 74 / 2 = 37.
3. Find the bottom of the stack: museum centerline − half. → 57 − 37 = 20.
4. From that bottom, go up to the bottom piece’s nail: bottom height − its nail offset. → 50 − 6 = 44.
5. Add them: 20 + 44 = 64.

nail_bottom = museum_center − (combined/2) + (bottom_height − bottom_nail_offset).

So, this is doable! But kind of a hassle. I used to use a spreadsheet for this. For three it gets even crazier.

Damn ok yeah I don't want to do that

Yeah! Terrible. I did it a handful of times before I created a spreadsheet. I then thought it would be cool to make this app.

You're welcome.