We like art. When we move in our walls will definitely not be bare. Plus, Dan has an MFA in sculpture from Cranbrook – that’s sorta the point of the entire top floor (his art studio). So one of the issues we had to resolve was hanging art on the exposed brick walls. We didn’t want to be putting nails into the brick, so we needed an art hanging system. Our solution looks like this…

There’s some cleaning up to do (joint compound on the brick), but you can see the thin track right along the brick. There are special hangers you put into it that let you hang art – up to 65 pounds per hanger.

We did it a little differently than the architect planned. He proposed it be recessed a bit and hidden…

But the problem with that was that it was impossible to get the hangers into the track with his solution and even if it had worked, it was a lot more work for our contractor. Our solution is easier and since the track is so minimal it still looks pretty good.

Here it is going in. it has a flange to one side that gets taped and mudded to the drywall…

There was another type that could have worked well. It was much bigger and was made to go next to 5/8″ drywall. It would have worked, but it was 2 1/2 times the price and still only held 65 pound – so we stayed saved some money and went with the smaller one.