As a professional art consultant near Asheville, I get to see an amazing amount of beautiful pieces both old and new. For a long time, my own personal style skewed toward traditional art, but lately I've really started to enjoy the broad range of contemporary work that's available in the western North Carolina region.

I suppose that's why I enjoyed this particular installation so much... the homeowner did an amazing job of taking old pieces and giving them a contemporary flair. It can be tough to marry old and new, but she did a great job of it.

It all started with a collection of original Audubon prints which her husband had gifted her for her birthday. She's a big fan of bird-watching, so they were the perfect present.

After consulting with us regarding her options, she purchased a set of identical "stand-off" style Plexiglass frames. You see these in use in a lot of commercial interiors, but it's not as common to see them in decor magazines, so it took a leap of the imagination to come up with the idea.

She had us mount each print in one of the frames, and I really liked the combination.

As I carefully set each piece into its Plexiglass sandwich, Arthur was busy laying out templates on the other side of the room.

Templates are often presented as an "easy" solution for making gallery wall layouts, but in fact they can be tricky if you haven't used them before, because they have to be correct to 1/8 of an inch in order to get the right layout. On the other hand, they really are the best way to preview your arrangement on the wall. We were glad we used them because we ended up expanding the whole layout once we saw it in the room.

And once they're in place, templates can very useful when it's time to mount the hanging hardware - or in this case, the hanging cleat.

I have to say, this project wouldn't be DIY-friendly. The cleats allowed for side-to-side adjustment, but the  height of each cleat from the floor had to be spot-on in order to make such a perfect grid pattern.

Fortunately our lead installer, Arthur, used to be a cabinet maker in his prior role, so he's got an eye for precision.

We caught the best view of the finished wall in our Instagram video... check it out and give us a follow if you haven't already.

And if you'd like a professional to install your gallery wall (to make it oh-so-neat-and-nice) please get in touch. We're happy to help.

Usually when I think of "acoustic" art, my mind goes straight to acoustic guitar music, as in MTV Unplugged. (Yes, I am getting old. But you have to admit that the Nirvana show back then was pretty spectacular.)

Anyway, now that I've inflicted - uhhh - that is, now that I have shared my musical tastes with you, let's get back to our real subject, which is installing acoustic art.

If you're moving to Asheville you'll quickly discover that almost all of the homes have two stories (or more). In fact, even many of the little cottages have daylight basements in order to take advantage of the steep terrain. And of course, two stories means you'll have a stairwell... and having a stairwell usually means you'll have a few noisy echoes.

So how do you cut down on echoes in a home? Well we've had several clients get in touch recently about hanging art in a staircase, and they had some great ideas.

First up is this beautiful macrame piece which came from Etsy. (Sadly I didn't get the shop name.)

I love the "mountains and waves" pattern. It seems very appropo considering we live in the mountains, alongside several rivers.

Next is an organic modern felt sculpture that's much bigger than it looks at first glance. I'd say each of the little rectangles is slightly larger than a phone. This one tested the limits of our ladders, which max out at about 16 feet, but it was worth it.

The homeowners custom-ordered the felt sculpture, and they even had it dyed to match a fun blown-glass collage which we had already installed over their kitchen door.

If you have a more traditional style of home, you could also try an antique tapestry. I've read recently that these are coming back into fashion as more and more people embrace the "English Country" look.

And of course, if you want to support the local Asheville artisans, you can't go wrong with a good old-fashioned quilt. Or maybe even a good modern quilt! Nowadays fabric artists often construct their pieces with rods for hanging pockets, which makes installation much simpler.

Of course, the main challenge when installing art in a stairwell is that if it's a wide piece, the far end has to go pretty high up over the stair.

​That's where we come in: we have special adjustable stairwell ladders and scaffold boards so we can reach up to sixteen feet over the stair. And that's plenty high.

We recently installed a really fun art gallery wall in a customer's home theater room, and I thought you'd enjoy seeing it.

The homeowner really enjoys fishing, and he had a whole collection of aqueous art for us to arrange. We began by laying it out on the floor and getting his approval, and then we cut paper templates so he could preview the layout before we actually installed the art.

This turned out to be a tall layout, and I was really happy that we were able to use so much of the wall space. It's nice when you can do that in a room with such high ceilings.

Notice the fish sculptures. From some angles, they almost look like the taxidermy trophies you sometimes see in a fisherman's home. But what if you're just fishing for sport, and prefer to catch and release? Well, these sculptures are the perfect alternative... they're actually ceramic with a raku glaze that's iridescent like fish scales.

Raku can be a tricky process with unpredictable outcomes, and it can be hard to make large sculptures like this because there's so much risk of cracking... so I had to admire the skill of the potter. I wish I'd gotten his or her name.

Notice how the fish are turned up slightly, as if they're coming up to take the bait. That was a little tweak we made at the suggestion of our client, and that's exactly why we prefer to start the layout with paper templates.

By the way, you'll have to use a little imagination to fill in the bottom of this arrangement. The custom wooden racks will hold the homeowner's collection of fishing poles.

In fact, they had a very outdoorsy theme in their home. Our other big project involved installing a large metal tree over their fireplace, and I really liked the way the texture of the tree contrasted with the grain of the wood on the chimneypiece. It was pretty high up though, and our client was happy not to have to wrangle it up there himself. Big pieces like this really are a two-person job, and you also need a very strong scaffold board in order to do it safely.

It can also be surprisingly tricky to hang a large piece over a bed without moving the heavy furniture. Fortunately, we have a few tricks up our sleeve for projects like this. And it made all the difference in the room to have a focal point over the headboard.

Speaking of color, I discovered a new artist during this project: the talented colorist Hessam Abrishami. I think I've actually seen his work before, but I never knew the name of the painter, so it was nice to see this picture in person and get to know his style better.

​I personally find it difficult to incorporate the full rainbow of colors into a painting without going over the top, but Abrishami skillfully offsets his riotous hues with enough neutrals to keep a pleasing balance.

If you've got large pieces like these which you'd like to display, but you're not sure how to do it safely, please give us a call. We've got the right ladders and scaffolds to reach all of those awkward spots.

​And there's nothing that makes a new house feel like "home" like finally having that special piece of art on the wall. We can even create a special family portrait wall showcasing the hobbies of the sportsman in your life.