Skip to content
Engineering Calculators

Picture Hanger Height Calculator

Instructions:

Note that all measurements are in inches

  1. Enter the height of the art piece as inches and fraction of inches.

  2. Enter the distance between the hook's top and the artwork's top as inches and fraction of inches.

  3. Enter the height you want the center point of the art to be located as inches and fraction of inches.  As described in Martha Stewart Living, the optimal height for the center point of the artwork is 60 inches. You can use this recommended center of artwork height or choose your height. 

  4. The hook height will appear in the Hook height results box.

There is a secondary calculator where you can enter the artwork's width, and the calculator will provide the centerline dimension and the artwork in thirds. 

Hook height

in

Also calculated
Hook height fraction
Center line in
Center line fraction
Thirds in
Thirds fraction

Measurements are given to the nearest 1/8 in, and a part-eighth always rounds up to the next eighth, which is what the original workbook does.

Hook height is measured from the floor: the centre height you want, plus half the picture height, less the drop from the top of the picture to the hook. Center line and Thirds are the picture width halved and divided in three, for marking hook positions across the wall.

Corrected 2026-09: the original prints the Center line whole inches without carrying into the next inch when the remainder rounds up past 7/8, so a 25 7/8 in wide picture showed a centre line of 25 7/8 halved as 12 in with a blank fraction instead of 13 in. The two cells beside it, Hook height and Thirds, always carried; this port carries in all three.

As featured on a Martha Stewart Living show in the early 2000s, this innovative method has stood the test of time and remains the go-to solution for achieving perfect picture placement. 

Methodology:

Artwork hung too high or too low can disrupt the space's design aesthetic. Martha Stewart, the homemaking goddess, suggests a foolproof method that the center of the art piece should be at eye level and that the most common eye level is 60 inches.  This easy-to-use calculator has you enter the height of the artwork, the distance between the top of the artwork and the hook, and the height you want the center of your artwork to be located (remember Martha Stewart suggests the center of the artwork should be at around 60 inches).  The calculator returns the height of where the hook should be located.