The fern took more restarts than anything else I have drawn, and it taught me what dies when a print gets small. Around A5, the finest divisions of the frond start to merge at an ordinary viewing distance. The silhouette still reads as a fern; what goes is the detail that made it that particular frond. That was one paper and one printer, not a law, but it is why I push back whenever someone furnishing a small Hong Kong flat asks for small art.
Fiurdelin is a botanical illustration studio on Lake Como, Italy, that draws plants, fungi, and insects from specimens and sells the work as fine-art prints and digital plates. This guide, on botanical.art, the Fiurdelin studio website, covers what actually decides wall art in a Hong Kong flat: floor area, humidity, a lease that forbids drilling, and a window that competes with everything you hang.
In short: in a flat under 400 sq ft, hang one larger piece rather than several small ones. Keep paper off exterior walls, out of bathrooms and away from the air-conditioner outlet. If you cannot drill, use a picture ledge or a rail rather than adhesive strips for anything framed. For a serviced apartment or a licensed guesthouse, the studio plans the rooms and quotes the whole order, or licenses the images so you can print them in Hong Kong.
| Key facts | |
|---|---|
| Studio | Fiurdelin, Lake Como, Italy |
| Catalogue | 53 published plates: plants, fungi and insects, each drawn from a specimen |
| Sizes | In sizes from small prints to over 150 cm (60 inches), by plate |
| Production | Made to order, 2 to 8 business days, then international transit. The delivery estimate for your address is confirmed before you order |
| Multiple rooms | A room-by-room plan and one quote for 8 to 40 pieces, or reproduction rights for printing locally |
| Not published | A humidity rating, a fade rating, or a specification for the frames’ glass or acrylic |
What wall art works in a small Hong Kong flat?
One larger piece usually works better than several small ones. In a flat under 400 sq ft (about 37 m²), a single print on the main wall reads as a decision, while four small frames read as clutter and make the room look smaller in photographs.
The fern is the reason I trust this. Fine detail is the first thing a small print loses, and in a small room you are rarely more than two or three metres from the wall, which is exactly the distance at which that loss shows. A larger print gives the drawing room to be read as a drawing rather than as a coloured shape.
A rough guide by floor area, counted as the saleable area agents quote:
| Saleable area | How many pieces | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Under 400 sq ft | One, two at most | The main wall of the living and sleeping space; a second only where it is seen close up |
| 400 to 700 sq ft | Two or three | Living room, bedroom, and the entry if there is a wall facing the door |
| Over 700 sq ft | Three to five | One per room, with a pair above the sofa or the bed |
What size fits above a bed or a sofa?
Aim for art between half and two-thirds of the width of the furniture below it. For a queen bed of 152 cm (5 ft) that is 76 to 101 cm of art; for a 137 cm (4 ft 6 in) double, 69 to 91 cm.
The plates are upright, so the width that matters is the short side. A pair of 43 × 61 cm prints with a gap of 8 cm (about 3 in) between them spans 94 cm, which suits a queen bed. A pair of 36 × 51 cm spans 80 cm and suits a double bed or a two-seat sofa of about 160 cm. A single 71 × 102 cm print is 71 cm wide and works above a double bed where you want one piece rather than two.
Hang the bottom of the frame 20 to 25 cm above the headboard or the sofa back. Many Hong Kong bedrooms have a split air-conditioner mounted above the bed; keep at least 30 cm clear of it, and never hang paper directly beneath the outlet, where cold air and condensation meet. Sizes are paper sizes, and each print carries a white border of 2.5 cm (1 in), so the image itself is 5 cm narrower and shorter. That matters if a framer in Hong Kong is making the frames.
Scale diagram. Paper sizes shown; the dashed inner line is the printed image.
Room by room: where does each piece go?
The living room wall
Fine-art print →
This is the wall you see from the door and the one every photograph of the flat is taken towards, so it takes the largest piece or the pair. In most Hong Kong layouts it is also the only wall long enough for a sofa, which settles the width question for you.
A pair photographs more calmly than a group of three, because the eye reads two as one unit and three as a sequence to be followed. Keep the pair inside the sofa’s arms; art that runs past them makes the sofa look undersized.
If the dining table shares the room, hang nothing above it that competes with the sofa wall. One strong wall and one quiet one is what makes a small room feel planned.
The bedroom
Fine-art print →
In a Hong Kong bedroom the bed usually fills the width of the room, and the wall above the headboard is the only clear surface left. That makes it the natural place for art, and also the place where the air-conditioner and a window often compete for the same metres.
Check the unit’s position before you choose a size. If the split unit sits above the bed, a pair set to either side of it works better than a single piece forced underneath, and the pair keeps paper out of the airflow.
Anything within reach of a pillow is a safety question before it is a style one. See the glass-or-acrylic section below before you order a framed piece for this wall.
The entry and corridor
Fine-art print →
The entry is the one place a small print makes sense, because you pass it at arm’s length. It is where the fern lesson runs the other way: a small print survives when the subject is a bold silhouette rather than fine detail.
A monstera leaf or a single orange reads at 29 × 41 cm from a metre away. A fern or a finely drawn flower at that size loses exactly what made it worth drawing, so save those subjects for the larger walls.
Hang the centre of the print at about 145 cm from the floor, the usual eye-level line, unless a shoe cabinet below sets a lower start. In a corridor, one print at the end of the sightline does more than a row of them along the side.
How do you hang art if the lease says no drilling?
Use a picture ledge, a ceiling or cornice rail, or a console that the frame can lean on. Most Hong Kong walls are concrete, many tenancy agreements restrict drilling, and adhesive strips are the weakest of the options in a humid flat.
Adhesive strips are sold with weight limits, and most makers advise against using them in humid rooms. The studio does not yet publish the weight of its framed sizes, so treat strips as suitable for small, unframed or very light pieces only, and nothing larger than 36 × 51 cm framed until the weight of that size is confirmed.
A picture rail with hanging wires needs two fixings instead of one per picture, which makes it the easiest thing to ask a landlord to allow, and it lets you move or change pieces without new holes. If you do drill, concrete needs a masonry bit and a wall plug rated for the weight, and two fixings per frame keep a large piece level through a typhoon season of slammed doors.
What survives Hong Kong humidity?
Paper art does best on an interior wall, out of direct sun, in a room that is air-conditioned or dehumidified, and away from a bathroom where a shower runs. We do not publish a humidity or fade rating for these prints, because we have not tested them for one, and we would rather say so than quote a number.
The Hong Kong Observatory’s monthly normals put mean relative humidity above 80 per cent from March through the early summer. The harder weeks are the damp spring spells when warm, moist air meets walls that are still cool and water forms on the surface. A wall that sweats will pass that moisture straight to the back of a frame.
What generally helps works on paper here:
- an interior wall rather than one facing the outside of the building, which is the wall most likely to be cold and damp;
- a sealed backing on the frame, which a framer can fit;
- small bumpers on the lower corners of the frame, so air moves behind it;
- running the dehumidifier or the air-conditioner’s dry mode through the damp spells, not only on hot days.
If a wall shows marks or mould after a spring, move the print rather than waiting to see what the paper does. Any single print can be reordered on its own, with no minimum.
What a framer can do for a print in a humid flat.
Where should art go when the window has the view?
On a side wall, at right angles to the window. From there the print takes raking daylight without glare, and it never has to compete with the harbour or the hillside for the same glance.
A print on the window wall itself sits against the brightest thing in the room, so by day it reads as a dark shape, and it only comes back at dusk or under a lamp. A print on the wall facing the window is lit well, but its glass or acrylic will reflect the view, which matters most if you photograph the room for a listing.
West-facing flats add a second rule: afternoon sun reaching a wall is the one condition that fades paper for certain, whatever the rating. Keep prints on walls the sun does not reach, or draw a blind in the afternoons.
Plan view. Dashed lines: daylight from the window.
Which plates suit a Hong Kong interior?
Plates with a story that belongs here, or at least does not argue with it. When I checked all 53 plates against four Italian places the studio designs schemes for, 22 fitted none of them. Several of those 22 are the plants with their history in Asia: the peony, the hydrangea, the pomegranate. The plates that cannot represent Lake Como are the ones that make sense on a wall above Victoria Harbour.
The peony on the plate is Paeonia lactiflora, the Chinese herbaceous peony, 芍藥 (sháoyào). An old saying in Chinese gardening makes the tree peony the king of flowers and this one its minister. The orange belongs here too: the sweet orange was first cultivated in southern China, and citrus is what fills the flower markets before Lunar New Year and is given in pairs when you visit.
The six below are the ones I would start a Hong Kong flat with. Each note says why the subject suits the room, not what it costs.
The full set
Fifty-three plates, each drawn from a specimen. Which one belongs on your main wall?
Should the frame have glass or acrylic?
For a bedroom or a guest room, acrylic is usually the safer choice, because it does not shatter and it is lighter on the wall. That is a safety decision more than an appearance one, particularly for anything hanging within reach of a bed.
Glass is harder to scratch and reflects a little less, which matters on the wall facing the window. Acrylic needs a soft cloth and no ammonia cleaner, which is worth telling a cleaner who comes once a week.
The prints can be ordered framed, or unframed for a Hong Kong framer. We do not yet publish a confirmed specification for the frames’ own glass or acrylic, weight or hanging hardware, so if a piece is going above a bed or into a corridor, ask before ordering and we will confirm it for that size first.
How does ordering to Hong Kong work?
Each print is made to order by the studio’s print partner and shipped from its nearest production centre. There is no production in Asia, so every order travels internationally.
Production takes 2 to 8 business days, depending on the product, and international transit is added on top. We do not publish a delivery time for Hong Kong because we have not measured one; ask with your address and we will confirm an estimate before you order, and order well ahead of any date that matters.
Prices are shown per print, by size and format, on each plate’s own page. Any local taxes or charges are not in the displayed price and are shown at checkout where they apply. The order is placed with the print partner, so you pay them directly and the confirmation and receipt come under their name, not the studio’s. Damage in transit is covered by the print partner’s 30-day policy, and any single print can be replaced on its own.
What changes for a serviced apartment, a guesthouse or a small hotel?
The scale changes, and so does the best route. In Hong Kong, stays of less than 28 consecutive days need a hotel or guesthouse licence, so furnished flats are usually let by the month, and short stays run through licensed premises. Both are buildings with many rooms and one owner, which is the case the studio plans for.
For eight to forty pieces in one building, the studio prepares a room-by-room plan and quotes the whole order with one delivery window. That is a quoted order rather than a licence: you receive finished prints, and the plan says which plate goes in which room, at what size.
For more than a handful of pieces, printing in Hong Kong can make more sense than shipping from outside Asia. The studio can grant reproduction rights for named plates, supply the files and a print specification, and let a local printer produce them. A replacement is then a local reprint in days, not an international order. Rights are priced per property or portfolio band, never per room.
For Hong Kong operators
A plan for the building before any order is placed.
Tell us the number of rooms, their sizes and the walls you have in mind. The studio replies with a plate for each wall, a size for each plate, and which of the two routes is cheaper for your building.
Plan a property →If you run units in Singapore as well, the rules there differ, and so does the buyer; the Singapore guide to condos and serviced residences covers how twenty units stay related without looking identical. For the general case of a let property, the guide to art guests remember covers what hosts elsewhere have learned.
Questions people ask about wall art in Hong Kong
Is it worth framing locally rather than ordering framed?
Often, yes. An unframed print travels as a rolled tube, which is lighter and less fragile than a framed parcel, and a Hong Kong framer can fit a sealed backing and bumpers for the local climate. Give the framer the paper size and remember the 2.5 cm border.
Will a print fade by the window?
Direct sun fades paper, and we have no tested fade rating to offer. Keep prints on walls the sun does not reach, and use a blind on west-facing windows in the afternoon.
What if one print is damaged?
Damage in transit is covered by the print partner’s 30-day policy. Damage later, from a knock or a leak, is a new order for that one print, at the published price, with no minimum.
Can I order a single print?
Yes. Every print is made to order, so one print is an ordinary order. The room-by-room plan is only for eight pieces or more.
Are these originals?
No. They are fine-art prints of hand-drawn digital illustrations, each drawn from a specimen, printed to order on archival matte paper or canvas.
Which route fits your flat or building?
Three setups cover most of what people in Hong Kong ask for. Each ends somewhere different.
| Setup | Pieces | Typical sizes (paper) | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your own flat, under 400 sq ft | 1 or 2 | One 71 × 102 cm, or a pair of 36 × 51 cm | The plates, then each plate’s own page |
| A larger flat or a single let unit | 3 to 5 | A pair of 43 × 61 cm above the sofa, one 55 × 76 cm in the bedroom, one 29 × 41 cm in the entry | The plates, or ask for a plan |
| A serviced apartment building, guesthouse or small hotel | 8 to 40, or more | Set room by room in the plan | Plan a property: a quoted order, or reproduction rights for local printing |
If you are unsure which of the three you are, start with the plates and the size guide above. A flat almost always needs fewer, larger pieces than it first seems, and a building almost always needs a plan before it needs a catalogue.