Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Things You’ll Need:
- Hammer
- Small, medium and large nails
- Pencil
- Tape measurer or yardstick
Step1
In most cases, you can hold up a picture and have a friend check for positioning and make a mark on the wall. Unfortunately, if you are alone come decorating time, you’ll need to be creative. First, come up with a plan of attack, especially if the picture is ungainly and large, so large that when pressed right up against it, you can’t tell how it looks against the wall.
Step2
Stand away from the wall and imagine the size and shape of the picture. Eyeball a general zone where you’d like to hang the frame or mirror. Make note of parallel lines around the wall such as wall bearings or the ceiling/wall intersection that guide you in where to evenly position the picture.
Step3
Approach the wall with the picture in both hands and a small pencil nestled between the fingers of one hand. Since you can’t measure and hold at the same time, eyeball where the picture should be laterally placed. Use objects such as the cushions of the couch or the corners of the bed to center the paining. Once the picture is centered, balance the weight of the picture in one hand long enough to make a quick mark of where one side of the painting should be.
Step4
Place the picture down and measure its width. Return to the wall with yardstick or measuring tape and measure the same width staring from where you made the first pencil mark. Mark where the other edge of the painting will be positioned. Account for how far in your nails will be from the edge of the picture. Go back to the painting and measure the space between the edges and the hooks for the nails, then return to the wall and measure in the same distance from the horizontal marks.
Step5
Hammer in one nail on either of the marks on the wall that denote where the pictures hooks are. Use your yardstick vertically this time. You already know that the horizontal positioning is correct. Now you need to ensure that neither side of the painting will be higher than the other. Measure down from the wall so that the vertical lines are parallel and then adjust the horizontal mark either higher or lower without changing the lateral positioning.
Step6
Hammer in the second nail. Be sure both nails stick out equally from the wall. Make sure that both nails are also straight. Tilting nails change the way the picture rests against the wall.
Step7
Gently guide the nails into the hooks of the picture. If you detect that the painting is slightly uneven, you can shimmy the picture along the hooks so that one side props up a tad higher or lower.
Novice 
