Art prints for your first home: a room-by-room starter kit

Congratulations. You have keys, a mortgage or a tenancy, a mattress on the floor and a growing sense that the walls are staring at you. Welcome to the first home. I'm Luis, and I sell a lot of art to people in exactly this moment, usually holding a takeaway coffee and a spreadsheet of what they can't afford yet.

Good news: art is the cheapest way to make a new place feel like yours. A sofa takes twelve weeks to arrive. A print goes up tonight.

The first-home art rule: three pieces, not thirty

You don't need to fill every wall in week one. In fact, please don't. Buy three things you love, live with them, then add more. Here's where I'd put them.

1. The living room: one statement piece. The thing people see first.
2. The kitchen or bathroom: one funny one. The room where guests are alone with their thoughts.
3. The hallway or bedroom: one personal one. A phrase that means something to you.

That's a whole home with personality for about £60 in prints. Then you add slowly, which is also how you end up with a collection rather than a shopping haul. More on that in how to start an art collection on a budget.

Living room: go big, or go A3

The living room needs something that holds the wall. A3 is the minimum for over a sofa, or group two or three A4s together. My guide to what size art print for a living room has the measurements, but the short version: aim for art about two-thirds the width of the sofa.

The Best Is Yet to Come is basically the first-home mood in five words. There Is No Plan is for people who bought a flat and are working out the rest later. Fuck Normal, I Want Magic is for the couple who did not buy grey everything.

Kitchen and bathroom: this is where the jokes go

Every home needs one piece that makes guests laugh. The bathroom is perfect: small wall, captive audience.

Please Don't Do Cocaine in the Bathroom is the classic and it comes in several colourways, so you can match the tiles. Please Leave by 7pm is for first-home dinner parties where you realise you're the one doing the washing up. Kitchens and bathrooms get steam, so frame anything on paper behind glass and keep it away from the shower.

Hallway and bedroom: keep it personal

The hallway is the first and last thing you see every day. Put something there you want to read at 7am. The bedroom is the place for softer, motivational pieces.

This Is So the Happy Place belongs by the front door. You Are the Work of Art is for the bedroom mirror wall, because you deserve a compliment before work.

First-home budget: what to spend

UK delivery on prints is £1.75 each and free over £80, so buying three or four at once usually pays for itself.

Renting your first home? Don't drill

If it's a rental, check your tenancy before putting nails in. You can lean frames on shelves, use a picture ledge or use removable strips. Read how to hang art without damaging walls before you lose your deposit to a wonky nail.

Do's and don'ts for first-home art

• Do buy one piece that makes you laugh. You'll need it during the flat-pack furniture phase.
• Do frame it. Even a cheap frame makes a print look intentional.
• Don't match everything to the sofa. Art should outlive the sofa.
• Don't buy a "set of three" from a chain store. Everyone who visits will have the same set.
• Do ask for help. WhatsApp me a photo of the wall and I'll tell you honestly what would work. I'm nosy, it's fine.

Moving in? Make it a gift

If you're the friend of someone who just got their first place, a print is a far better housewarming present than another candle. I've got a whole list of unique housewarming gifts.

First home art questions