If you’re a renter or live in a dorm, there might be rules against using nails or screws to hang pictures. Similarly, if your walls are made from concrete, stone, or brick, it can be a hassle to drive hardware into the wall to hang art without causing damage. Luckily, there are some sneaky ways to display photos and art without surrendering your deposit.
Use temporary adhesive
Using tape-like adhesive strips that are designed to let go without damaging your walls is one option for a no-damage art installation. The strips can be applied to a clean, drywall surface and then you can press your picture onto the strips. When you’re ready to take them down, there’s a tab to pull that will release the strips without taking any paint with them. These strips will have a maximum weight listed, so be sure to read that before choosing the size strips you need. This type of adhesive can be used on most painted, smooth surfaces, but they don’t stick well to unpainted concrete, masonry, or unfinished wood.
Use Command hooks
Command hooks work similarly to adhesive strips, except that they come with a hook to hang a frame from rather than sticking your picture directly to the wall. These hooks come in a variety of sizes for different-sized frames and can be removed by pulling a release tab, just like the strips. You can also find picture stabilizer hooks designed to slot into frames to keep them steady and level on the wall. Like the adhesive strips, these work best on finished, smooth surfaces.
Prop pictures against the wall
If you can’t hang your pictures up, you can try leaning them instead. Using a desk, dresser, or other source, you can lean frames against the wall to display them. You can also use this method with an existing wall shelf or mantle if you’ve got one. Taking advantage of chunky molding for this purpose can also help you find spots to lean your art without making holes in the walls.
Repurpose an old ladder
If you have an old ladder or a blanket ladder, you can use clips or ribbon to hang art from the rungs. Lean the ladder against the wall, and you have an instant art display without any holes in the wall. When making your display, make sure that the ladder you’re using has rubber feet to avoid damaging the floor.
Use an easel
If you have a larger piece that you want to make into a focal point, you can use an easel to display it. This method for displaying pictures can also give your art some height and move it away from other furniture. Be sure to measure your piece and get an easel that’s the right size for what you want to display so that your easel doesn’t tip over.
Use ribbon or string and your curtain rod
For lighter pictures, you can swag string or ribbon from a curtain rod, and use clothespins or binder clips to attach pictures. You can also choose to hang ribbon or string vertically, although you’ll need to tie loops into your ribbon or string to have an attachment point for your clips. This style of display works for unframed pictures only because a frame would likely be too heavy for the curtain rod as well as the clips.
Lean a bulletin board
If you have a large bulletin board, you can make it into a photo display by leaning it on top of a desk or dresser and then adding your art to it with push pins. You will likely only want to do this with prints, as you’ll make holes in the paper with tacks. If you want to use the bulletin board method without making holes in the paper, you can use push pins with clips to hang unframed photos and art.
Use cork panels
If you have furniture you don’t mind sticking something to, you can apply self-adhesive cork panels to it to give yourself a display surface for art. Using the previously described push pin method, you can use the cork tiles to turn the side or back of a bookcase or the doors of an armoire into a no-damage art display.