The problem is rarely your taste. You know which poster you want. The problem is that there’s a two-year-old in the hallway who climbs on everything, or a cat that sees every horizontal surface as a runway. So the question isn’t which print you like, but which art will still be hanging a year from now — and won’t be lying in shards on the floor if it doesn’t. This buying guide takes you through the decisions in order: glass or acrylic, hanging height, mounting, subject choice, and the mistakes that cost the most.
How many homes this actually affects
It’s easy to think you have a special problem. The figures say otherwise. According to Agria and the Swedish Kennel Club’s 2026 pet survey, based on responses from more than 10,000 pet owners, 31 percent of Swedish households have at least one pet. Cats still reign supreme: there are around 1,582,000 cats in the country, and 20 percent of households have at least one. There are about 951,000 dogs, up 2.7 percent since the 2024 survey.
The most telling figure concerns the overlap. Among households with children under 15, a full 30 percent have a cat. This means that the combination of young children and pets is not an exception but one of the most common types of Swedish household — and yet interior design advice is almost always written as if the wall were in an empty room.
Quick facts: Agria and the Swedish Kennel Club’s 2026 pet survey is based on responses from more than 10,000 pet owners. It shows that 31 percent of Swedish households have at least one pet, that the country has around 1,582,000 cats and 951,000 dogs, and that 30 percent of households with children under 15 have a cat. According to government injury statistics, about 40 percent of all home and leisure accidents happen in or near the home, and they particularly affect young children.
The glass is the most important line on the product sheet
If you can only make one decision consciously, make it this one. A frame is rarely sold on the basis of its glass, but the glass determines what happens the day the frame falls.
Acrylic glass, often sold under the name Plexiglas, weighs about half as much as regular picture glass. Less weight means less force on impact and less strain on the mount, which in itself reduces the likelihood of the frame coming loose. The material is also shatter-resistant: it tends to crack rather than fly apart into sharp fragments. One important caveat — shatter-resistant does not mean unbreakable. Acrylic can break; it just breaks in a gentler way.
The downside is that it scratches easily. Acrylic is a softer material and can’t be wiped dry with paper towels, and it reflects light from lamps a little more than regular glass. Even so, in a home with a dog’s nose at chest height and sticky fingers on everything below a meter, it’s a trade-off that almost always favors acrylic.
"Acrylic can break. It just breaks in a gentler way — and that’s the whole point in a home where someone might crawl beneath the picture."
The recommendation is therefore simple: everything hung below 150 centimeters, everything in children’s rooms, playrooms and hallways, and everything larger than 50x70 should have acrylic glazing. You can reserve regular glass for smaller formats hung high in rooms where children are rarely alone. If you want to learn more about what distinguishes a good print from a bad one, regardless of glazing, take a look at our buying guide to paper quality and printing.
Height: why the museum rule doesn’t apply in your home
The standard used by galleries and museums is to place the artwork’s midpoint 145 centimeters above the floor, roughly the average eye level of a standing adult. It’s an excellent rule, and it’s wrong for your home right now.
With the center at 145 centimeters, the bottom edge of a 50x70 poster sits about 110 centimeters above the floor. That’s exactly within reach of a child who has just learned to walk while holding on to the wall, and exactly the height a cat lands at when jumping down from a dresser. Falls are the most common cause of injury among children, and contact with objects comes second — two categories that converge in a frame being pulled off the wall.
Solve this by raising the centerline to 155 or 160 centimeters in rooms where little ones roam freely. The artwork will be a little high for adult eyes, but that ten-to-fifteen-centimeter margin is the difference between within reach and out of reach. As your child grows, you can lower the frame again, and the original screw hole will be hidden by the frame in its new position if you plan the distance from the start.
Tips: Kneel by the wall before drilling. If the bottom edge of the frame is within reach when you stretch your arm up from that position, it’s within reach of a child who can pull themselves up. Move it up ten centimeters and test again.
Hanging that actually stays put
A nail in drywall will hold a lightweight frame securely when left alone. It won't hold when a five-year-old hangs from it. Whether the frame stays up or falls down almost always comes down to three things: the wall fixing, the hanging hardware on the back of the frame, and whether the frame has a second support.
In a drywall, use a drywall anchor or a screw that goes into a stud, not a nail. If the frame has a cord on the back, it hangs from a single point and can swing sideways at the slightest nudge, gradually shifting out of level and eventually slipping off the hook. Two hooks a few centimeters apart double the weight capacity and eliminate the swinging entirely. A couple of self-adhesive rubber pads on the lower corners of the frame also stop it scraping against the wall, which is exactly the kind of sound that tempts a cat to investigate.
An option worth considering if you rent or want flexibility: wooden magnetic poster hangers weigh a fraction of what a framed print does and contain nothing that can shatter. The design can be changed in ten seconds, which is an advantage in children's rooms where interests shift faster than the decorating budget. We've gathered more alternatives to drilling in our guide to hanging art in a rental.
Designs that stand up to everyday life - and those that don't
Practicality influences your choice of design more than you might think. In a home with young children and pets, art is more likely to end up where it can get sticky, dirty, and unevenly lit, and it is more often viewed up close by someone pointing and asking questions.
This points to designs with clear shapes and recognizable elements. Animal designs are the obvious choice because they give the child something to name, and posters featuring cats and animals work just as well in the hallway as above the changing table. Children's wall art with simple shapes lasts longer than you might think, since it still works when the child is ten. Botanical designs and graphic compositions are another safe bet: they age well and require no maintenance beyond dusting.
What doesn't work as well are motifs whose entire effect lies in the surface. High-gloss prints show every fingerprint. Motifs with large, even areas in light tones reveal the slightest mark on the frame edge. And works that rely on very small details lose their impact when the frame has to be hung fifteen centimeters higher than usual, because the viewing distance then increases while the motif does not.
Practical details: format, cleaning, and when to buy
Format is also a safety issue. A 30x40 frame weighs so little it can barely cause any damage, while a glazed 70x100 is a heavy object on the wall. The larger the format, the more important both acrylic glazing and double mounting become. A sensible rule of thumb is to let the size grow with the child's age: smaller formats hung low while the children are small, larger formats when reach is no longer a concern.
To clean acrylic, use a dampened microfiber cloth, never dry paper and never ammonia-based window cleaner, which dulls the acrylic surface. The frame itself can take more: a wood or metal frame can be wiped down with a slightly damp cloth without any problem.
Timing matters too. Many people buy art for the children's room when moving in or renovating, precisely when the child is smallest and has the least reach. It's a good time to choose the frame and glazing, but a bad time to commit to a motif for a long time. Expect to change the motif in the children's room at least once before school age, and choose the frame with that future change in mind.
Finally: don't buy everything at once. A home with small children changes faster than most interior design plans can keep up with. Start with two or three prints in the rooms where they're actually seen, see how they hold up over six months, and build from there. For the room where the children play most, we've gathered specific advice in our guide to posters for the playroom.
The figures in this guide are based on Agria's 2026 animal survey and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency's report on accidents among children and young people.
Frequently asked questions about art in homes with children and pets
Art in a home with young children and pets isn’t about compromising on style. It’s about making three choices deliberately instead of by accident: acrylic instead of glass, ten centimeters higher than the museum standard, and two hooks instead of one. Do that, and you can choose any subject you like. At Bozetto, all prints are available in sizes from 13x18 to 100x140 centimeters, so you can start small and gradually grow into the wall.