How do I hang these pictures?

April 12, 2023 7:23 PM

I bought some pictures at a junk store, nice photos of architecturally interesting buildings that I think were being cleared out from a university architecture library. They're mounted on cardboard. I tried hanging them with double sided sticky things and it was a disaster.

There are half a dozen of these and I don't want to buy frames plus I think the aesthetic here is a super casual one as they're mounted on cardboard and have typed labels.

I think the problem with the sticky squares was that my walls, weirdly, have almost a popcorn-ceiling texture. In any case, one by one, the pictures fell off the wall.

My next thought was single tiny tack but it seems like it would be very easy to have that look too messy and irregular. When I hung a bunch of these in a grid, before they fell, I felt like it had a charmingly weird Wes Anderson vibe.

Suggestions?

posted by less-of-course to Home & Garden (12 answers total)

I’d use glue on a sawtooth hanger, readily available at the hardware store. I’ve used E6000 glue on mine (making a standing frame to a wall mount). But a high quality hot glue should work too if they’re lightweight. I make sure there’s glue under and it squeezes over the edges and through the tack mount hole. If you measure and line up where you place them it will be easier to mount them all the same way.
posted by Crystalinne at 7:34 PM on April 12, 2023 [3 favorites]

Are you trying to avoid using any nails on the wall? Something that I have seen look cool (in the charmingly weird Wes Anderson way you describe) is to hang photos, postcards, or other types of pictures on a piece (or pieces) of twine, stretched along a wall between two nails.

You can affix the photos using binder clips, clothespins or metal chip clips. It has kind of a dark room vibe.
posted by pazazygeek at 7:53 PM on April 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

Did you try the hanging strips with velcro? I've had the best results with that on weirdly textured walls.
posted by xxx9038709992203 at 8:02 PM on April 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

Could you mount short pieces of 1x4 to the wall traditionally, then stick the art to those? I bet it would look cool and work well.

Even better if you could put up little narrow shelves and just set the cardboard on that, leaning against the wall.
posted by amtho at 9:09 PM on April 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

Maybe Blu Tack would conform to the wall surface and adhere better than the double sided tape?
posted by sriracha at 5:58 AM on April 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

If nails on the walls are okay - these kinds of poster hangers, where you have two strips of wood along the top and the bottom, and then a string to hold them up, would work.

Or - I have a big map hanging in my office at work that's hung up using a thumbtack each through the hole in a couple of extra large bulldog clips.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:08 AM on April 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have hung all kinds of stuff on my walls with Command Velcro strips for hanging pictures. It even works on my knock-down textured walls (they are textured, but not overmuch). You are supposed to clean the wall (with rubbing alcohol, IIRC), which I don't generally do, but might in your case, since your walls are so textured. They do sometimes lose grip with age, I've recently had 2 framed pictures fall off the wall after about 5 years hanging up.
posted by sarajane at 8:54 AM on April 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Not sure what double-sided sticky things you tried but 1. yes to blu-tac 2. try what's known as "alien tape" – you'll probably have to dig in a bit on the wall side to make sure enough of it gets stuck but that stuff is magic, as far as I am concerned.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:31 AM on April 13, 2023

I think L-pins would look tidy and be easier to level.
posted by birds at 9:56 AM on April 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

If nails/screws are an option, I used mirror clips for similar pieces mounted on foam core. Crystalline's suggestion about gluing a sawtooth hanger is a good one; that gives you some leveling and some security (the head of the nail will usually be somewhat held captive by the sawtooth hanger, so the picture doesn't just fall off the nail.)
posted by xedrik at 10:20 AM on April 13, 2023

Museum putty is the upgrade to blue tack
posted by advicepig at 6:19 PM on April 14, 2023

That said, I’d glue a sawtooth hanger on there and use small nails in the wall
posted by advicepig at 6:20 PM on April 14, 2023