A new home gift: choosing a wooden pixel picture with meaning

When a friend or relative moves house, most of us look for a present that is useful but also stays in the memory. A small picture on a wall can manage both. This post explains how to choose the subject, size and frame of a new home gift, and why a few familiar Turkish symbols tend to work well.

What to think about first

Someone who has just moved usually has bare walls, half-unpacked boxes and no settled taste yet for the new rooms. A good gift therefore carries two things: a meaning the person recognises at once, and a calm size that can sit in almost any room.

It helps to ask yourself:

• Is the recipient furnishing the home plainly or with plenty of colour?
• Where would you like them to hang it: the hallway, the kitchen, the living room?
• Should the picture start a conversation, or simply sit quietly on the wall?

If you want the wider questions about gifting, our guide to choosing a gift picture covers them.

Why evil eye, tea and simit work

These three subjects feel familiar the moment they appear in a new place.

• The evil eye (nazar): The blue nazar boncuğu is widely known in Anatolia as a charm believed to ward off the evil eye, and hanging one in a new home is a common tradition. The Nazar picture is made of 256 blocks and measures 27 × 27 cm. It carries the custom without the look of a bead by the door.
• Tea (çay): Tea is often the first thing offered to a guest in Turkey. The Çay picture has 320 blocks and measures 27 × 33 cm, and it suits a kitchen or a seating corner. For someone about to host their first visitors, it is a friendly nod.
• Simit: A familiar part of breakfast and of the street. The Simit picture has 400 blocks and measures 33 × 33 cm. It is the largest of the three and can hold a dining area on its own.

Which size

For a gift, small and medium sizes are usually the safer choice. You probably have not seen the recipient's walls, and a piece around 27 × 27 cm can go in a hallway, on a shelf or on an empty stretch of wall. Larger pieces want a wall of their own. We go through the relationship between rooms and sizes in which size for which room.

All sizes include the frame: each block is about 1.5 cm, with a 3 cm frame all round.

Frame and light

A natural oak frame is included in the price. A black or white frame is +500 TL, and choosing no frame takes 300 TL off. If you do not know the home, natural oak is usually the easy option.

Every block face is cut at 30° or 45°, so light falls on each face at a different angle. For someone still discovering how daylight moves through a new home, the picture will look a little different in the morning and in the evening.

Before you order

Every piece is made to order, with delivery in 10 days. When it is finished we send you photos and a video before it ships. It is wrapped in foam and shipped free with premium delivery. There are no returns or exchanges unless it arrives damaged; if it does, we make it again. So it is worth settling the subject and frame before you order.

If the recipient enjoys making things, a make-it-yourself kit is another route for pieces of up to 450 blocks: the box holds the blocks and a numbered map.

You can see all our pieces on the artworks page.