One of my favorite ways to decorate a room is to grace one or more walls with a tapestry. These woven beauties are the perfect addition to a room with almost any decorating theme or style. The choices of size and shape and theme are endless. So if a tapestry is something you have been thinking about for one or more rooms of your home or office, it’s a good idea to know what your options are in respect to the way you will be hanging this art on your wall.

Depending on how you purchase your tapestry (brick and mortar store or online), there might be some basic preparation involved. Most of the time when you purchase your wall hanging for delivery to your home or office, there will be at least one fold in the tapestry that was necessary for packing your purchase for delivery. When you open your delivered wall hanging there might be a fold line or 2 in your tapestry. Don’t fear. Here is a safe way to remove any unwanted fold lines in your tapestry.

To remove any fold lines in your tapestry, use a steam iron and iron the back side of the wall hanging until the fold lines are gone. Otherwise, if you don’t have a steam iron, take a regular electric iron and with a damp clean cloth (cloth that the color won’t bleed) and place the clean damp cloth over the front of the tapestry where the fold line is and iron at a moderate heat (NOT HOT) until the fold line is gone. These are the safest ways to remove fold lines without damaging your artwork.

All tapestry wall hangings have a basic construction in order to be able to hang them properly on a wall. Just so you understand their construction, they are all lined on the back side and have either a rod pocket or several loops at the top in which you can insert a decorative hanging rod. Some tapestries also have a bottom pocket to insert heavy metal rods in order for the wall hanging to hang straight from top to bottom.

Most tapestries are hung with a decorative rod. These rods, that are usually sold separately, come in a large variety of shapes, styles and colors. Tassels are also available in a large assortment and may be hung from the rod ends along the left and right sides of the wall hanging for a more dramatic effect.

A word of caution if you are buying a tapestry for the first time. You might want to go with a wall tapestry that has a hanging pocket instead of hanging loops. The reason for this is if the construction of the loop hanging tapestry is not done correctly, after time you might see slight curves inward between the loops of your tapestry.

A more economical way to hang your hanging pocket tapestry is to insert a wooden board approximately ¼ inch thick by 2.5 inches tall. Cut the length of the board so that the ends will not be seen protruding from the hanging pocket at the top of the tapestry. Once you have the length of the board cut to the proper length, drill screw hole evenly along the length of the board. The amount of screw holes will be determined by the size and weight of the tapestry. Larger wall hangings will, of course, will need more support and more screws than smaller wall hangings. Once you have evenly spaced screw hole in the board, take the board, hold it up to the wall at the location the board will be when the tapestry is hung. With a pencil, mark a dot on the wall through each hole to mark where the screws will be driven into the wall to hang the tapestry.

Next, drill a small hole into the wall for each of the pencil dots you have made. It is a good idea to use screw anchors for stronger support, so after you drill the screw holes insert screw anchors into each hole. Once you have all your holes drilled and all your anchors inserted into the holes, insert the board into the hanging pocket of your tapestry and hold the tapestry up to the wall and with the proper size screw for your anchors insert each screw. This method of hanging a tapestry will mount your wall hanging flush to the wall.

If your situation calls for mounting your tapestry on a curved wall then use Velcro®. You can find Velcro tape. This form of Velcro has an adhesive backing and can be applied directly to the back side of your tapestry. You can apply Velcro tape directly on your wall, but to avoid the tearing of your wall, should you want to remove the Velcro on a future date, screw a few thin strips of wood on your wall to form a frame. Then Velcro the wooden strips instead of the wall. If the time comes to remove the tapestry, all you have are a few screw holes to patch up.

You now have several ways in which to mount your tapestry to the wall. All you have to do now is find a tapestry to match the theme of the room you wish to hang it in. Whether you choose one large wall tapestry or a series of several small tapestries with a similar theme, hung together, you will have a most enjoyable eye-pleasing atmosphere for many years to come.