Creative Ways To Hang Pictures When Your Home Isn't Your Own


*This is a collaborative post

Nothing’s better for making a home than the chance to hang pictures. Nothing completes a room like an inspirational quote or picture of your loved ones. These, more than any other accessory, can really make a house feel like your section of the world. Being able to sit back and look at these whenever you want can help you find calm at a moment’s notice.

Sadly, for those who live in apartments or condos for rent, this isn’t always an easy goal to achieve. Far from it, in fact. If there’s one thing landlord’s hate, it’s the idea of someone else drilling holes into their pristine walls. Often, a no-hang policy will even appear somewhere in your contract. If you ignore that and hang things anyway, you could well face losing your deposit.

That’s a whole load of money to chuck away for the sake of putting a few prints on your walls. As such, the majority of renters keep their walls bare and go without ever really making that space their own. But, what if we were to tell you that there’s a way to make your rental a home without drilling through your deposit? By getting creative with the way you display your pics, it’s possible to make this suit your rental needs. Keep on reading to find out how.

Hang pictures on furniture you already have

A fantastic and hassle-free option here would be to use the furniture you have to display your pictures. Given that this furniture is stuff you’ve brought into the space, there’s no way your landlord could object to this. Even better, you don’t need to spend a penny to make this method work for you. All you need to do is get creative with how you use what you’ve got. A fantastic example of this would be to use your existing shelves or bookcases as display areas for your prints. If you have something like a metal bed frame, you could hang frames on it rather than the wall behind. You could also make use of things like cabinet handles or existing door hooks for this purpose. All without your landlord having a leg to stand on when it comes to stopping your attempts. So, sit back and get your thinking cap on. Even if you think a picture wouldn’t stay up if you hung it in a certain way, give it a go. You don’t know if you don’t try, and that one crazy idea could see your frames taking pride of place.

Use washi tape instead of picture hooks



Us creative types love a good bit of washi tape, don’t we? Ever since bullet journals took off, the majority of us have at least a few rolls of this hiding in a drawer. If that’s the case, it’s past time you took them out and made use of them. The fact is that washi tape is the ideal compromise to hanging pictures. The majority of tapes like these are nowhere near sticky enough to mark or pull off paint. As such, they would be ideal for sticking, rather than hanging, your pictures and prints to the wall. Admittedly, you would need to take these out of their frames before this could work. If that worries you, why not use your prettiest washis to create new frames around them on the wall? If you’re happy to go frameless, a few strips of washi tape on the corners of your pictures should be enough to keep pictures in place. If you have white walls, this is also a fantastic way to inject a pop of colour which could set your room alight. If you choose your tape carefully, this could become so much more than a practical solution. If could become a design feature in itself, and one you can bet none of your friends has.


Use string to hang your pictures

If you have beams or wooden poles anywhere in your home, it may be worth considering hanging pictures on string. It’s understandable that most landlords object to hefty nails in their walls. Far less will find ground for complaint about a drawing pin through a piece of wood. This should leave next to no mark when you remove it. It could be a fantastic way to ensure you still get to display the things you want to. It is worth bearing in mind that large prints may not survive a method like this. Their weight alone could see them falling down in no time. Make sure, then, that you don’t risk hanging a heavy frame. Instead, stick with using small pictures for this purpose. These won’t weigh too heavily on your string. For your more substantial pieces, consider hanging string from things like drawer handles. These will be able to offer an extra layer of support and ensure you don’t break your frames.

The art of leaning

If all else fails, you could always get into the habit of leaning your pictures on your walls. Thanks to the trend of minimalism, it’s now not unusual to keep art prints on the floor and lean them against your walls. Far from looking unfinished, this can now look bang on trend. That's especially the case if you choose subtle frames which are suited to the task. A thin black frame, for instance, would look fantastic against a white print. If you’re worried about losing sight of these down on the floor, consider that you don’t need to stick down low to make use of this leaning technique. Resting prints on something like a fireplace would also look fantastic. You could even lean them against the wall atop things like your chest cabinets. Where there’s a gap and a flat surface, the chances are that you can make this work. It may not be the picture wall of your dreams, but you may well find that this looks a lot better than you anticipate. Even better, your landlord can’t object in any way.

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