How to Choose a 3 Piece Art Set — A Room-by-Room Guide

Choosing a 3 piece art set is simpler than it first appears once you have a framework. The decisions — palette, scale, style, format — are consistent regardless of which room you are choosing for. This guide walks through each decision in order and applies the principles room by room.

Step One: Establish Palette

Palette is the most important decision in choosing any art set, and it should be based on the room's existing tones rather than personal colour preference in the abstract. Stand in the room and identify the two or three dominant undertones: is the room primarily warm (cream, honey, amber, terracotta) or cool (grey, slate, white)? Light or dark? Saturated or muted?

Look for sets that share those undertones — not sets that match specific colours, but sets that operate within the same temperature and value range. A set that introduces a new colour family (adding bold blue to a warm neutral room) will feel like an imposition rather than an addition.

Step Two: Establish Scale

Measure the wall space available and the furniture below (if applicable). Apply the two-thirds rule: the total art span should be roughly two-thirds of the furniture below. If hanging without furniture reference, the set should cover 60 to 75 percent of the relevant wall section. Calculate the print sizes that achieve this span at your preferred gap width (5 to 7 cm for above-furniture placement).

Sizing up is almost always safer than sizing down. Art that is too small for a space looks tentative; art that is correctly scaled looks confident. See our large wall guide and our spacing guide for specific measurements.

Step Three: Choose Style and Subject

Once palette and scale are established, style and subject are the final creative decisions. These are more personal and more fun to navigate than palette, but they are downstream of it. Abstract sets are the most versatile. Botanical sets add organic warmth. Coastal sets suit relaxed, light-filled homes. Black and white sets work across any room and any palette change. Figurative and photographic sets suit spaces with a strong personal character. Browse Olive et Oriel's full range of 3 piece art sets filtered by style to see the options across each category.

Room-by-Room Application

Living room: warm or neutral abstract, botanical, or coastal sets in sizes proportional to the sofa (two-thirds of sofa width). solid timber or matte black frames. Bedroom: soft, calm sets in muted tones — botanical, minimal abstract — sized to the bed. Dining room: warm botanical or abstract sets sized to the sideboard or feature wall. Hallway: portrait-orientation sets in organic or abstract styles, evenly spaced along the corridor. Home office: minimal abstract or botanical sets in calm palettes that support focus. Nursery: soft, nature-inspired sets in desaturated palettes — sage, cream, dusty pink — in acrylic-glazed frames. Each room has its own character, but the underlying framework — palette first, scale second, style third — applies consistently.

Olive et Oriel's Approach

Olive et Oriel has been curating art sets since 2015 of NSW. Every set in the collection has been considered as a group — the palette, scale, and style decisions have already been made for each trio. The collection spans hundreds of sets, printed in Australia and available framed or unframed, shipping to 40+ countries with duties paid on international orders. Whether you are decorating a living room in Sydney or a bedroom in London, the process is the same.