Who we supply · Design & specification
Oversized wall art for stairwells, double-height voids and long walls
iHomeArt paints oversized wall art for designers, developers and homeowners: original canvases for stairwells, double-height voids, three-metre sofa walls and the far end of a long corridor, each made to the measurements of its wall. Send a photo and the dimensions, and we propose the size, redraw the composition to your proportions instead of stretching it, and ship it in the form that will get it up your stairs.
Oversized wall art at a glance
- 254 cmLongest listed side (100 in), tall or wide; bigger canvases painted to order
- Any ratioVery tall or very wide, with the composition redrawn rather than stretched
- RolledHow a very large canvas gets upstairs; a local framer stretches it in the room
- PanelsA pair, a triptych or a stepped run up the stair, painted as one picture
- Sketch firstThe composition at your wall's proportions, approved before any paint goes on
- Medium
- Acrylic on canvas as standard; oil paint on request. Hand-painted, never printed
- Size
- Any size, including oversized single canvases and multi-panel sets
- Finish
- Rolled, stretched ready to hang, or framed in gold, silver, black, white or wood; 3D plaster and deep relief ship stretched or framed
- Approval
- Photos or video at each stage; the next stage starts only after you approve; the final photograph is approved before dispatch
- Lead time
- About 10 days to paint, then 5–7 days by DHL, FedEx or UPS express. Large orders get their own date in the quote
- Minimum order
- One piece; volume pricing from 10
- Price
- Priced for your sizes, finishes and quantity; your quote usually arrives within one business day
- Shipping
- Arranged for you: we find the best route for your address and confirm the cost with you before dispatch, as shipping is quoted separately
- Payment
- 50% upfront against a proforma invoice; 50% once you approve the final photograph, before shipping
- Peace of mind
- You approve every finished piece from a photo before it ships. If anything arrives damaged, we take it up with the carrier and work out a solution with you
How big should oversized wall art be for your wall?
Measure the clear wall, aim for art covering roughly 60–75% of its width or of the furniture beneath it, and put its centre where people's eyes actually are.
Take off door frames, switches and the handrail, and size the canvas from what is left. These are first estimates; send the measurements and a photo and we mark a proposed size on it.
| Wall | Size from | Hang | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long sofa | 60–75% of the sofa | Lower edge 20–25 cm (8–10 in) above its back | 3 m sofa: 190–225 cm wide |
| Stairwell | The longest stretch of wall the flight passes | Centre about 150 cm (59 in) above the middle step | 1.4 m of wall: about 100 × 200 cm |
| Double-height void | About half the wall's height | Lower edge 100–120 cm above the floor | 5.5 m wall: 2.4–2.8 m tall |
| Corridor end | Half to two-thirds of the end wall | Centre 145–155 cm (57–61 in) | 1.4 m wall: about 80 × 180 cm |
Then mark the outline with painter's tape or brown paper and photograph it from the doorway, the sofa and the stair. An outline that feels a little too big is usually right.
Stairwell art: how high and how big when the floor keeps climbing?
Hang it for the person on the stairs: centre it about 150 cm above the middle step, keep it clear of the handrail and the turn, and prefer one tall piece or a stepped run to a row of small ones.
Stairwell art is seen from the hall, at an angle on the climb and from above on the way down. A strong vertical axis, a broad field of colour or a low horizon holds up from all three; detail at the edges is lost. This is the wall vertical works are made for.
- Straight flight: one tall canvas centred over the middle step, or two or three stepped so their tops follow the handrail.
- Dog-leg or U-shaped stair: the wall facing the half-landing is seen head-on while climbing, so give it the largest piece, sized from the landing.
- Open stair in a hall: size the wall behind it as a hall wall and let the treads pass in front.
Keep the lower edge 30 cm above a wall-mounted handrail, and leave room at the turn of a landing, where corners get knocked when furniture goes up.
Double-height wall art: how do you fill a wall that rises through two floors?
Size it to the people rather than the ceiling: a canvas about half the wall's height, starting just above the furniture, reads from the room below and from the gallery above.
Centre a painting on a 6 m wall and its middle sits at 3 m, over everyone's head, with bare wall beneath: the piece floats. Anchor it to the room instead, its lower edge about 25 cm above a sofa back, and let it rise past the upper floor so the gallery sees it too.
Seen from five to eight metres away on the floor below, and steeply from the gallery, big shapes, strong contrast and real relief carry; quiet tone-on-tone brushwork turns to flat colour. Look at dramatic and bold works for weight, or one large calm field where a staircase and a glass balustrade already keep the eye busy. If one canvas is more than the route in can take, two stacked with a narrow gap read as one. For hotel atriums, see lobby statement art.
Which paintings hold up as large wall art?
Works built from a few large shapes, a long horizon, a field of colour or real texture gain presence at three metres; busy detail is redrawn for the size rather than blown up.
- Abstract fields and gestures, where one sweep of colour becomes a wall of it: abstract.
- Long horizons, which gain more sky, water or foreground: landscape and seascape.
- Plaster and knife-laid relief, whose ridges throw longer shadows as the canvas grows: textured.
- One botanical form, a branch or a bloom, kept at a believable size with more space around it.
At this size the canvas becomes part of the colour scheme, so any catalogue work can be recoloured to the sofa, the stone floor or your paint codes. If nothing in the catalogue is right, the piece can be designed for the wall from your brief, or painted from a photograph you took (your own image).
How is custom size canvas art redrawn for a very tall or very wide wall?
The painter recomposes the work at your proportions, extending its sky, field or rhythm and re-spacing its elements, so a 1:3 stairwell canvas is a new painting of the same idea, not a stretched copy.
Nothing is enlarged from a file: brushwork, knife marks and relief are made at the scale of your canvas.
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AA#083 Taller
More sky over a landscape, a longer fall of colour in an abstract, with the focal point kept near eye level.
Vertical works -
IA#1134 Wider
A longer horizon, another wave or stand of trees, each element kept at its painted scale. Listed panoramics reach 254 cm and go wider to order.
Panoramic works -
TA#563 Turned upright
Many abstracts and reliefs read either way up, so a wide composition can become a tall one for a stair; we confirm it works first.
Textured works
Say what must stay
Tell us what made you choose the work, such as the colour balance or the central motif, and the painter keeps it.
Past about 3:1
A very long or very tall ratio often looks better as panels than as one strip of canvas. Master works by our senior partnered artists keep their original size.
Single canvas or several panels: which suits a stair, a void or a long wall?
Keep one canvas where the wall is unbroken and the route in allows it; split into panels when the ratio passes about 3:1, the stair turns or curves, a door interrupts the wall, or one canvas would not reach the room.
Panel sets are painted to order: give us the overall size and the gap, and the painter composes across the whole so a line or a horizon carries through. Some catalogue works, such as the AA#1224 diptych, are composed that way already.
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One canvas
- Best for
- An unbroken sofa wall, a corridor end, a void with a generous front door
- Check
- The route to the wall; rolling solves most of it
-
Pair or triptych
- Best for
- Walls wider than 3:1, a very tall void, a wall broken by a door
- Gap
- 5–8 cm (2–3 in) for a pair; 6–10 cm (2½–4 in) for three or more
-
Stepped up a stair
- Best for
- A long straight flight
- Spacing
- Equal gaps, each panel raised by the same height so the tops follow the handrail
-
Round a curve
- Best for
- A curved or spiral stair wall
- Width
- Narrow enough to sit almost flat, usually 60 cm or less on a tight radius
How big can an oversized canvas painting travel, and what does each way cost in time?
Rolled, a very large canvas goes by express in a tube a little longer than its shorter side; stretched, framed or heavily textured, it travels full size in a crate, which beyond parcel size means freight, more cost and a later date.
- Rolled
- A 100 × 300 cm stairwell canvas fits a tube about 1.2 m long and goes by DHL, FedEx or UPS express: the lowest shipping cost and the quickest delivery. Your framer stretches it on site.
- Stretched or framed
- Ready to hang, in a box the full size of the canvas. Within the carriers' parcel limits it still goes express; larger boxes move to air freight, which costs considerably more and adds days, and the biggest crates can go by sea.
- Heavy texture
- 3D plaster, deep relief and thick knife work would crack in a tube, so they travel stretched or framed. For a very large piece that means a crate on freight, panels in smaller boxes, or a thinner texture agreed before painting so it can roll.
We find the best route for the size and the address and confirm the cost before dispatch. See logistics.
Will a large canvas get through the front door, up the stairs and into the lift?
Rolled, nearly always; stretched or framed, only if it passes the tightest point on the route, so measure that point before choosing the finish.
Send these and we say which finish reaches the wall:
- Doors: clear width and height with the door fully open; a flat canvas can pass on its diagonal.
- The stair turn: flight width and headroom at the half-landing. A rigid panel longer than the stair is wide often will not pivot round a dog-leg.
- The lift: inside width, depth and height, and the diagonal from a floor corner to the opposite top corner.
Stretching on site. A local framer builds the stretcher in the room, with cross braces on a large canvas so it stays square and taut. Allow a few days and the framer's fee, give them the face size you specified to us, and have the tube delivered to their workshop or to the site. For a house with many walls at once, see villas and whole-house projects.
How is a big canvas hung and lit over a stair or a void?
Hanging is the installer's job, planned for the piece and the wall; lighting needs beams that cover the whole canvas without glare on the stair.
Weight. A stretched canvas is light for its size but catches air like a sail, so a 2 m one needs two people; a frame or plaster relief adds a good deal. The installer picks fixings for plasterboard, block or brick, usually a cleat or two fixing points, and works from a stair platform or scaffold tower rather than a ladder.
Light. One picture light leaves most of a 2.5 m canvas in shade. Use two or three adjustable spots set out from the wall by a little over half the drop from ceiling to canvas centre, so the beam meets the wall at about 30°, aimed so nobody coming downstairs looks into the lamp. Choose warm white with high colour rendering, and keep the canvas out of hours of direct sun from a tall window.
How does oversized wall art go from a wall photo to a finished canvas?
Through a sketch at your wall's proportions that you check against your own photo, then stage photos and a final photograph, so size and composition are settled before the paint goes on.
Tell us when the wall must be finished; larger canvases, panel sets and deep relief get their own date in the quote.
- Wall photo and sizesWidth, height, what stands in front of the wall, the route in, and a photo from where people stand.
- Size and shortlistA proposed size marked on your photo, catalogue works or a design for the wall, and a quote, usually within one business day.
- Sketch at your proportionsThe redrawn composition, panel gaps included. Drop it into your photo or elevation and approve it.
- Stage photosPhotos or video as the canvas builds up; the painter carries on once you approve.
- Final photo approvedThen it is rolled, stretched or crated for the route you chose.
- To the framer or the siteTracking at dispatch: the framer stretches a rolled canvas in the room, or the installer hangs it.
Oversized wall art: questions buyers ask before measuring up
What is the largest canvas you can paint?
Listed sizes go up to 203 × 153 cm (80 × 60 in) for standard-ratio works, 254 × 127 cm (100 × 50 in) for long panoramic and tall formats, and 183 × 183 cm (72 × 72 in) square. Larger single canvases are painted to order: send the wall's dimensions and we confirm the canvas size in writing with the quote, or suggest panels where the route calls for them.
Does a 3-metre canvas take longer to paint?
Usually, yes. A canvas beyond the listed sizes, a panel set or deep plaster relief needs more painting and drying time, so it gets its own date in the quote. Delivery then depends on the format: a tube goes by express, while a large crate on freight adds days. Send your deadline with the measurements.
How much does oversized wall art cost?
It is priced for your piece: by canvas area first, then by surface (relief and heavy knife work use more paint and need longer to dry), the number of panels and the finish. Shipping is quoted separately and differs a lot between a tube and a crate. Unsure between one canvas and a pair? Ask for both in one quote.
Can I order just one oversized painting?
Yes. The minimum order is one piece, so a single canvas for a stairwell or a sofa wall is an ordinary order, quoted on its own. Volume pricing starts at ten pieces, which helps when a designer adds the rest of the house to the same order.
Can a holiday photo or a view be painted as a large canvas?
Yes, and the photo's resolution matters far less than for a print, because the painter works from it rather than enlarging it: a phone picture of a coastline can become a 2.5 m canvas with brushwork at the right scale. Send the photo and the wall size; see paintings from your own image.
What if the size feels wrong once the canvas is on the wall?
That is what the taped outline and the sketch are for: the size is settled on your own wall before painting starts, and you approve a photograph of the finished canvas before it ships. Approved pieces are final and are not returned, so send us a photo of the taped outline if you are unsure.
Will a very large canvas sag over time?
A well-built stretcher keeps it taut: on a big canvas the framer adds cross braces, and a keyed stretcher lets them tighten the corners later. Slight seasonal slack is normal and quickly corrected. Stretched and framed pieces from us arrive tensioned on their bars.
We are developers with the same double-height void in several homes. Can each have its own piece?
Yes. One work can be varied into a related series, so every void gets its own original at the same size and in the same palette, approved once as a sketch, and ten or more pieces bring volume pricing. For dressing show apartments, see show homes and sales suites.
Design & specification
Send us the wall
Send a photo of the wall from where people stand, its width and height, and the narrowest point on the way in. We reply within one business day with a proposed size, a shortlist and a price.
Other buyers we supply
Each kind of buyer has its own page: what they need from hand-painted art, and how we work with them. All buyer pages
- Art consultants & advisory firms needing production capacity Art production for art consultants
- Residential interior designers: colour-matched and resized pieces Art for interior designers, hand-painted to order
- Villas, private residences & whole-house art schedules Art for luxury homes and villas
- Hotel lobby & public-area statement pieces Hotel lobby art painted by hand to order
- Galleries & framing shops buying wholesale Premium wholesale oil paintings for galleries, framers and importers