A room under the roof gives you two surfaces and only one of them is usable. The slope is a bad place for a framed print, so everything happens on the short vertical wall beneath it — the knee wall — typically 90 to 170 cm tall. The standard hanging height of 145 cm does not survive contact with it.
Why 145 cm is off the table
Do the arithmetic once. A 50×70 hung portrait with its centre at 145 cm has its top edge at 180 cm. Add 15 cm of clearance so the frame is not jammed into the angle where wall meets slope, and you need a vertical wall of 195 cm. A wall of 195 cm is not a knee wall — it is a wall. On anything shorter the standard height is unavailable, and trying to get close to it is what makes attic walls look wrong. Where the 145 cm figure comes from, and the other cases that override it, is set out in the hanging height guide.
The usable band
Measure the knee wall from floor to the point where the slope begins. Take 20 cm off the bottom, for the skirting and for the fact that art below knee height is not looked at, and 15 cm off the top for clearance. What is left is the band you have to work in, and the largest format is whatever fits inside it.
| Knee wall | Usable band | Band height | Largest format that fits | Centre at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 90 cm | 20–75 cm | 55 cm | 50×70 landscape (50 tall) | 48 cm |
| 110 cm | 20–95 cm | 75 cm | 50×70 portrait or 70×100 landscape (70 tall) | 58 cm |
| 130 cm | 20–115 cm | 95 cm | 70×100 landscape (70 tall) | 68 cm |
| 150 cm | 20–135 cm | 115 cm | 70×100 portrait or 100×140 landscape (100 tall) | 78 cm |
| 170 cm | 20–155 cm | 135 cm | 70×100 portrait (100 tall) | 88 cm |
Those centres look startlingly low written down — 48 cm is barely above a chair seat — but on the wall they are correct, because the eye reads the art against the band of wall it sits in rather than against the floor. Dimensions for every format are in the size guide.
Solid oak frame 21x30 cm
Black wooden frame 50x70 cm
Black wooden frame 30x42 cm
Black wooden frame 21x30 cm
Solid oak frame 30x42 cm
Solid oak frame 50x70 cm
Three ways to fix the height when the rule is gone
- Centre the band. Put the middle of the frame at the middle of the usable band; the margins above and below come out even.
- Follow the furniture. A bed, desk or low chest against the knee wall decides the bottom edge instead: 20 to 25 cm of bare wall above it, then check the top against the band.
- Follow a horizontal already in the room. A dormer window head, a door frame, the top of a wardrobe. Aligning the frame's top edge with an existing line makes the low position look chosen.
Why landscape wins here
The constraint in an attic is vertical and only vertical: the wall is as long as you like and as short as the roof allows. A landscape frame buys span without buying height. A 50×70 turned landscape is 70 cm wide and 50 tall, covering more wall than the portrait version while taking 20 cm less of the band. It also runs parallel to the line where wall meets slope, which settles the composition under a strong diagonal. Two landscape frames side by side, centres aligned and 6 cm apart, work better than one tall piece for the same reason.
Do not hang on the slope
A frame fixed to the sloping surface tips forward on its cord, collects dust along the top of the glass and reflects the ceiling light back at you. If the slope is the only surface you have, lean the print on a shelf or a low chest instead of fixing it overhead.
Attic rooms are usually bedrooms, and the calm end of the range suits them: the bedroom prints and the quieter Japandi selection. Frames in all five sizes, oak and black throughout, are in the frame range.