Strategic Wall Art to Beautify Your Room
(Originally published March 2020; Re-published and improved from orginal!)
Wow, plain walls! So inspiring!
Said no home buyer ever!
Walls give rooms boundaries, and they define the living spaces of a home. Architectural details such as chair rail, wainscoting, or built-in cabinets add details that elevate the style of a room, but these features are relatively uncommon outside of the custom home market. Prospective home buyers at all price points crave luxurious rooms. Walls that have built-in details deliver on luxury.
What if your house doesn’t deliver on those extra details?
Plain walls, especially plain walls in an unremarkable color, do not excite anyone! The advice that sellers often receive from real estate agents is to paint and tone down wall colors so as to not offend buyers. However, what you get instead is neutral, boring, and nondescript rooms, especially without built-in details. Does that excite you? It doesn’t do much for me.
The rationale for neutralizing your walls for sale
If your wall colors need to be neutralized to sell your house, I get it. Outdated, overwhelming, overly dark or garishly bright colors will probably show poorly, so by all means, re-paint! Generic beiges or whites may have a broader appeal compared to hunter green or loud colors. The problem is that bland colors rarely look fabulous on their own. They neuter the room, and while the potential buyer will see a blank slate, they also need to see the potential beauty of the room.
How to inspire home buyers
Consider using some creative wall art to fill the visual space and add some pizzazz to your rooms!
For easy-to-install wall art that makes an impact, consider large, unframed canvas pieces or photo collages. The artwork should be large enough to fill the blank space of the wall while leaving a comfortable margin to “frame” the artwork. Large mirrors can also fill spaces well, although they are much heavier than canvas art (not to mention breakable!). I prefer canvas art myself, because the pieces are easy to install, hang, and remove, and because the price point is hard to beat.
When staging your home for sale, choose artwork for a room deliberately. Bright colors, stripes or geometric shapes, light/dark contrast, positive messages, and playful themes show well. Nondescript art in pleasing shades complement any style of room decor and give buyers a focal point.
What to avoid
Avoid controversial subject matter, because it is a turn-off for buyers. I will never forget the artwork in one home that featured a busty, topless mermaid! (Cringing!) If you have installed a group of frames or panels that function as a collage art display, make sure they hang straight. Seeing frames askew on the wall will certainly make the display appear messy.
Where to shop
I have personally had excellent luck finding affordable artwork at discount retailers like Home Goods, TJ Maxx, and Target. Online resources such as art.com or americanfineart.com often feature unique pieces at reasonable prices.
If you feel creative, blank canvases can be purchased inexpensively from craft supply retailers such as Michael’s or Hobby Lobby. Let your creativity flow! Use craft paint or leftover wall paint to create the look that you want for your room.
Hanging Art
To hang canvas art, I have used various products with success. Lately, I have used Monkey Hooks to hang art pieces around my own home. They take little skill to use and provide a secure mechanism for hanging art with only a small hole in the wall. See my YouTube channel for a Monkey Hooks product review!
What if you don’t want any wall holes at all? You will be happy to know that the Velcro hanging strips provide a great option, and the adhesive removes easily with the pull of a tab. I would caution you, however, to hold pressure for several minutes when securing the artwork to the wall. Also, use more tabs around the back of your artwork than you think you need. See the Gate City Design YouTube channel for an instructional video on using 3M Velco strips!
Personal testimony
I used the 3M strips to mount pictures in my old office to avoid putting holes in the wall. Only once did a picture fall from the wall, and it was a diploma with a heavy frame. I followed my own advice when I re-hung the picture, and it stayed in place until I moved out of the office.
Don’t forget to depersonalize before you list!
Disregard the outdated, boring and overly cautious advice to remove the personality from the home you are selling. Definitely remove your personal photos and identifying information (i.e. awards and diplomas)–buyers need to imagine the home as their future home, not your home! However, this is a great opportunity to use some creative wall art to give the rooms of your home a personality that will resonate with potential buyers.
