Living with the work
Hanging a painting in a stairwell or on a landing
7 min read ▪ 30 August 2026
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A stairwell gives you height, distance and an approach from an angle, which is close to ideal. Willem van der Krieken on the one measurement that goes wrong.
How high do you hang a painting in a stairwell?
Hang to the eye level of somebody standing on the landing, not to a point halfway up the flight. On a staircase, eye level rises about 19 cm per step, so there is no single correct height — the landing is the only fixed reference in the space. Then walk to the bottom of the flight and look up before you drill.
- The stairwell is usually the tallest wall in the house, so a small canvas disappears.
- You see it from three positions and only one of them is standing still.
- Measure 145 cm above the landing floor, or above the nose of the tread you stand on.
Why a stairwell suits this work
Three things a stairwell has that most rooms do not.
Height. A stairwell wall runs the full two storeys, so the ceiling constraint that rules out a tall canvas everywhere else does not exist here. This is the one wall in an ordinary house where a 120 cm canvas is not even close to the limit.
Distance. Standing at the bottom of a flight you are three to four metres from the upper part of that wall, measured along the diagonal. That is more viewing distance than a corridor, a bedroom or most living rooms give you.
An oblique approach. You never walk straight into a stairwell wall; you rise past it, turning. A visitor meets the painting from an angle, in their own time, which is exactly the condition that makes a direct image comfortable rather than confrontational.
Add to that the fact that stairwell walls are almost always empty, and it is arguably the best wall in the house for this series — better than the living room, and less exposed than the hallway below it.
Eye level is a moving target
The standard rule is the centre of the canvas at 145 cm from the floor. On a staircase there is no floor, only a series of them.
A Dutch stair rises about 19 cm per tread, so somebody climbing it gains 19 cm of eye height per step. Over eight steps that is a metre and a half. There is no height at which the canvas is at eye level for a person on the stairs, because the person on the stairs is a different height every second.
So use the fixed points instead. Two rules, and they agree with each other:
On the landing wall: 145 cm above the landing floor, exactly as anywhere else. The landing is a floor, people stand still on it, and the rule applies unchanged.
On the flight wall: find the tread that sits directly below the middle of where the canvas will hang, and measure 145 cm up from the nose of that tread. This gives the correct height for somebody standing at that point on the stairs, and it is the version that looks right from everywhere else.
What goes wrong when people improvise is always the same: they hang it to look right while standing at the bottom, which puts it far too high, and then it looks like a painting on a chimney. The arithmetic in how high to hang a painting works the same way here, with the tread nose substituted for the floor.
The three sightlines to check
Before you drill, look at the paper rectangle from all three, in this order.
| Where you stand | What you are checking | Common failure |
|---|---|---|
| Bottom of the flight, looking up | That the canvas is not lost against the top of the wall | Hung to look right from here, and therefore too high for everywhere else |
| Halfway up, in passing | The distance from your shoulder to the wall | Close enough to brush. A canvas on a flight wall is at elbow height for someone carrying a box |
| Standing on the landing | The actual hanging height | Ignored entirely, because nobody thinks of the landing as the viewing position |
The landing is the viewing position. It is the only place in the whole space where a person stops moving, and it is where anyone who wants to look at the painting will end up standing.
The size problem: the biggest wall in the house
A stairwell wall is typically two and a half to five metres of uninterrupted plaster. A 50 × 30 cm canvas on it does not read as restraint; it reads as an accident.
Use the tall end of the collection here. The 120 cm canvases — Riae (Orange Van) at 120 × 100 cm, or any of the 120 × 80 works — are the right order of size for a stairwell, and they are the sizes that struggle to fit anywhere else in a house with 260 cm ceilings. If you have been looking at a large canvas and could not find a wall for it, this is the wall.
Two smaller canvases stacked vertically also works in a stairwell, and it is one of the few places it does, because the wall follows the diagonal of the stairs. Not two of these paintings, though, for the reason set out in how to display the work at home: two figures side by side or stacked stop being two people and become a category. A canvas with something that is not a figure above or below it is a different matter.
Getting it up there and fixing it
The practical part is the part people underestimate, and it is entirely about the ladder.
- You cannot put a stepladder on stairs. Either the canvas goes on the landing wall, where you can stand normally, or you need a stair platform or a proper stair ladder. Do not improvise this with a plank across treads while holding a painting.
- Mark the height from the landing, then transfer it. Measuring on a slope is where the error creeps in. Establish the height where you can stand safely, then use a long level or a laser to carry the line across.
- Check the wall. Stairwell walls are frequently plasterboard partitions between houses or against a stairwell shaft, not the masonry you assume. Knock it before you buy fixings.
- Two fixings, always. A stairwell wall vibrates every time somebody comes down it. One hook means straightening the canvas for the rest of your life.
- Watch the handrail. A canvas that overlaps the line of the handrail will be brushed by a shoulder within a week.
One thing a stairwell rarely has is light. There is usually a single fitting at the top, which puts the wall in its own shadow — the same problem as a hallway, and the same fix. Light and a dark wall covers what that does to skin tones.
Sizes are listed height first on the paintings, which is the number the heights above are measured against.
Questions people ask
How high should a painting hang on a staircase?
Measure 145 cm up from the nose of the tread that sits directly below the middle of the canvas, or 145 cm above the landing floor if it is on the landing wall. There is no single eye level on stairs, because eye height rises about 19 cm with every step.
What size painting works in a stairwell?
A large one. A stairwell wall is usually two and a half to five metres tall and completely empty, so anything under about 80 cm looks stranded. It is the one wall in an ordinary house where a 120 cm canvas is nowhere near the ceiling limit.
Can you hang paintings on the wall along the stairs themselves?
Yes, and it is a good wall, but check the distance from your shoulder as you climb. Anything that overlaps the line of the handrail will be brushed within a week. Use two fixings, because a stairwell wall vibrates every time somebody uses the stairs.
How do you hang a painting safely over a staircase?
Not from a stepladder balanced on the treads. Either use the landing wall, where you can stand on a level floor, or use a stair platform. Mark the height where you can stand safely and transfer the line across with a long level rather than measuring on the slope.
