Wall art size guide for the UAE, from apartment sofa to majlis wall

Sizes are for the canvas and assume the ceilings you meet most often: 2.7 m, the minimum for living rooms and bedrooms in Dubai, in most flats and townhouses, and 3 m or more in villas.

Torn between two rows? Tape out the larger size first: on a UAE wall, a painting chosen on a screen nearly always looks smaller.

Two-thirds ties the painting to the furniture without crowding it:

• Sofa. A 220 cm three-seater takes about 150 cm (59 in); a 300 cm sectional about 200 cm (79 in), or a pair of 90–100 cm (35–39 in) canvases.
• Bed. A 180 cm king takes 120–135 cm (47–53 in), a 200 cm super-king 135–150 cm (53–59 in); measure from the top of the headboard, not the mattress.
• Dining table. A 240 cm table for eight takes about 160 cm (63 in), hung a little lower for seated diners.

Over a sofa the limit is usually height. Under a 2.7 m ceiling, an 85 cm sofa back, a 20–25 cm gap and a similar margin below the ceiling leave room for a canvas about 135 cm tall at most, and 90–120 cm looks better. At 3.2 m, as in some branded residences on the Palm, a 150 cm-tall canvas sits comfortably. Browse living room, bedroom and dining room art.

The majlis is where UAE homes most often under-size their art. One Abu Dhabi practice describes majlis rooms with six-metre spans, four-metre ceilings and seating along three walls. With sofas along most of each wall, the painting goes above the seating, at half to two-thirds of the length of the sofa run beneath it: on a six-metre wall, 250–350 cm.

Guests read it sitting down. Majlis seats are usually 40–45 cm high, which puts seated eyes at about 110–120 cm, so keep the canvas long rather than tall, 80–120 cm high (31–47 in), with its bottom edge 20–25 cm above the sofa backs; under a 3.5–4 m ceiling, the wall above belongs to the chandeliers and cornice. Emirati family villas often have two such rooms, a men’s and a women’s majlis: size each wall on its own, and where a door breaks the run, use panels. Subjects are on UAE taste and styles.

Double-height spaces are not only for mansions: some Palm Jumeirah villa layouts run a double-height foyer through the centre of the house, and Dubai listings advertise double-height living rooms in four-bedroom townhouses too. Under 4.5–6 m, a 150 cm canvas looks like a postage stamp.

• Size by the height. Fill about half of it: 200–250 cm under 4.5 m, 250–300 cm under 6 m, or two stacked canvases 8–10 cm apart.
• Anchor it low. Keep the bottom edge about 90–110 cm from the floor, as if a console stood beneath it.
• Check the second view. Look from the landing too; the upper half of the composition has to hold up from there.

On a stair wall, centre the work on the middle of the flight, about 150 cm above the steps at that point. See vertical wall art.

UAE apartments are planned around the view: in many towers the living and dining area runs along floor-to-ceiling glass, so the art wall is the solid one opposite, often shared with the television. A two-bedroom on Al Reem Island measures about 1,345–1,835 sq ft, and its living wall takes a 100–150 cm horizontal, a 120 cm (47 in) square or a pair of 80–100 cm (31–39 in) canvases.

Then think about the way in. Heavily textured work travels stretched or framed only, so in a tower it is often better as a pair.

One canvas is calmer and suits most walls up to about 2.5–3 m. Beyond that, a diptych or triptych painted as one composition fills the wall as well and is far easier to deliver and hang. The widest rooms need it most: the formal salon of a Dubai villa seats fourteen or more, and its long wall wants 300–500 cm of painting in total.

Count the gaps: three 100 × 120 cm canvases with 6 cm between them run 312 cm (123 in), not 300. Keep the panels the same height, align their edges and centre the set on the sofa or the head seat. In a villa corridor, three to five evenly spaced 60 × 90 cm (24 × 35 in) verticals do the same job; for hotels, see corridor art in series.

To place it, mark the centre height on the wall and measure half the canvas height up and down from it: a 100 cm-tall canvas centred at 150 cm runs from 100 to 200 cm. Plan the light too. Collectors’ villas on Saadiyat are now designed with reinforced hanging walls, layered lighting on the art and daylight held back by blinds and screens, and Abu Dhabi majlis schemes favour warm 2,700–3,000 K light, which flatters gold and warm neutrals.

The standard sizes on each catalogue design are starting points. Choose from some 1,300 designs and we repaint the composition for your proportions rather than simply enlarging it, so a design you like can often become a panoramic for a majlis; or we design a piece for the wall. For a whole villa, one canvas can be painted first and the rest follow once you approve it. Tell us how the piece will reach the room, by lift, stair or door, and we suggest rolled, stretched or framed to suit.

See also paintings from your own image, oversized wall art, villas and homes in the UAE and the UAE wall art guide.

Each canvas can travel stretched and ready to hang, framed, or rolled; a rolled canvas, the lightest and most economical way to send a large painting, arrives without stretcher bars, and any local framer can stretch it for you.