How to Hang a Picture With Near-Perfect Accuracy on the First Try

There are many times in life when we hear a bit of information and incredulously mutter to ourselves, Duh. Of course I knew that. Who doesn’t know that?! And then there are times when we learn something so simple, so basic, and that solves such a persistent, annoying (albeit small) pain point in our everyday lives — that we haven’t been able to solve in our increasingly plentiful years on this planet — when we have no choice but to say, What the hell? How did I not know this already?

This is one of those times. (For me, at least. If you’re in the former category on this one, good on you.) Here, I will convey something of which many grown adults may already be aware, but I, being a humble student of life’s domestic vicissitudes, am not too proud to admit I did not.

How to hang a picture with painter’s tape

Did you know you can use a piece of blue painter’s tape to hang a picture frame with near perfect accuracy, instead of measuring, making pencil marks on the wall, checking your maths, realising it’s wrong, erasing and re-measuring the space between the damn holes (multiple times) like a chump?

Well, you can. Simply take the piece of painter’s tape and place it on the back of the item you want to hang on the wall. Use a Sharpie to mark, on the tape, where the frame’s hanging holes are. Then, of course, all you need to do is place the tape on the wall (use a level to get it straight), hammer nails in the Sharpie marks you just made, and gently peel away the glorious non-stick tape. What you are left with are perfectly spaced hanging holes the first time (with no need for annoying recalculations in quarter-inch increments, and their attendant feelings of 8th grade test anxiety).