Guides
What Size Print Should Go Above a Sofa?
Measure the sofa, not the wall. Art looks right at about two thirds of its width: here is what that means in real print sizes, and when one print beats two.
In short
- Aim for art about two thirds of the sofa’s width, counting every print and the gaps.
- Over a three-seater, a pair of 60 × 90 prints gets close; over a two-seater, a pair of 50 × 70.
- Hang the bottom edge 15 to 25 cm above the sofa back and keep 5 to 10 cm between frames.
The wall above a sofa is usually the largest empty wall in a home, and the one people most often get wrong. The print is too small and floats in the middle of nowhere, or it hangs so high that it belongs to the ceiling rather than to the room.
The fix has little to do with taste: measure the sofa, not the wall. The sofa is what the art has to answer to.
The two-thirds rule
Art above a sofa looks settled when it covers about two thirds of the sofa’s width. That means the whole arrangement: a single print, or two or three prints plus the gaps between them.
- A 150 cm sofa wants around 100 cm of art.
- A 210 cm sofa wants around 140 cm.
Much narrower and the print looks lost; wider than the sofa itself and the wall starts to feel crowded. Anything between half and three quarters of the width is comfortable.
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Lisbon in Motion
A yellow tram cuts through a sunlit Lisbon street lined with tiled façades, balconies and overhead wires, rendered…
Which sizes work over a two- and a three-seat sofa
Most VEERY prints are vertical, so width usually comes from a pair rather than from one very large print. Our sizes run from 20 × 25 to 60 × 90 cm.
- Two-seat sofa, 140–170 cm: two 50 × 70 prints side by side, about 108 cm wide with an 8 cm gap. For a quieter wall, one 60 × 90 on its own.
- Three-seat sofa, 190–230 cm: two 60 × 90 prints, about 128 cm wide, or three 50 × 70, about 166 cm.
- Corner sofa: measure the side you face when you walk into the room and treat it as the sofa.
A frame adds about a centimetre on each side, so round up rather than down when you check the width.
How high to hang it
Leave 15 to 25 cm between the top of the sofa back and the bottom of the frame. Any higher and the print drifts away from the sofa; any lower and heads will knock it.
With a pair, line up the bottom edges and keep 5 to 10 cm between the frames, so the two read as one piece. Away from furniture, the usual rule applies: the centre of the print at about 145 to 150 cm from the floor.
One large print or two
A pair fills the width and gives the room symmetry, which suits a sofa centred on its wall. Choose two prints that share a colour or a subject, like Lisbon in Motion and Valencia in Color, so they look like a decision rather than a coincidence.
One print is the quieter choice. It will not reach two thirds of a long sofa, and that is fine if you want the wall to breathe: a single print has its own power. In that case, choose the largest size, 60 × 90, and centre it over the middle of the sofa.
Before you buy, cut sheets of paper to the sizes you are considering and tape them to the wall for a day. It is the quickest way to see whether 50 × 70 feels generous or timid in your room. When it looks right, browse prints for the living room or all prints.
On real walls
Above the sofa
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