How to hang pictures without nails

Every homeowner or renter has experienced it: Pulling artwork off a wall and surveying damage from nails, hooks and other hardware used to hang pictures.

Sometimes it even happens in the process of trying to hang art, with repeated tries and misses to get the picture straight. That leaves walls looking anything but right, even when the art is hanging right.

The best advice for picture-hangers is to stay away from nails if possible. Many other possibilities exist to hang pictures and artwork beautifully while keeping walls beautiful, too.

Tape, poster putty and adhesive strips or hooks can serve as alternatives. But all of these can have the same negative outcomes as nails: damaged walls.

A solution that many overlook, is a rod- or wire-based system, often called a gallery system, suspended from high on the wall, where the wall meets the ceiling, or from the ceiling itself. These systems are strong, usually adjustable and make hanging art of all sizes and weights easy and safe, with minimal impact on walls.

The gallery system is so named because many art galleries use it to hang their pieces. They like the system because, once it is installed, they never have to change it again. They can change or rotate multiple pieces without altering the hanging system.

It also offers advantages in residential or commercial applications. Property owners or managers never have to drill or make holes in their walls again, or worry about marring them with adhesive hanging materials.

The gallery system installs with minimal impact, and it stays up looking elegant, as well as allowing changes, without any wall impact. What’s more, galley systems are among the strongest hanging options, avoiding situations in which art and the wall are both ruined when other hanging options fail.