Living Room Decor Experiments

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a large open area above my couch that needs to be filled.

I used to have this large Asian screen there, but Hubby continued not liking it despite my best efforts, so I've moved that up to my sewing/workout room.

I really like the way a set of framed prints flanked by sconces look.


Classic, but with character. I thought that a set of prints from the Turgot map of Paris might look nice.


But Hubby has something against Paris, despite having spent a lovely long weekend there a few years ago. While I thought it would be nice to highlight as a place we visited together, he says that in the grand summary of places we've spent time, Paris doesn't qualify for an entire wall.
I may still override him... though I've been looking for some cool gold sconces for quite awhile now and haven't had much luck. I think I'll have to increase my budget to find what I'm looking for!

But I saw this shot:

And really liked the drama of the dark elements and animal print with the traditional couch (the upholstery of which is just like mine!) I started looking at darker sconces and found these at ZGallerie:

Nicosia Lantern

And I kind of love it. I feel like it would be even better if the back were mirror, or sliver leaf... But I like how it's kind of Mediterranean/Moorish, and totally goes with my mantle of the moment:

Isn't that light glowing in gorgeous? It was sunset. But you see the sort of Moorish lantern I have up there? It would be nice with those sconces/half lanterns, right?
The price is right, but the problem is that they're kind of HUGE. Like 4 feet tall huge! I measured that couch and it's just under 4 feet at the highest point! I don't have a ZGallerie near me, so I can't very well just go get some and try them out, and shipping is a bit high to take that leap of faith.
So I decided to try to GIMP (that's the free Google version of Photoshop) them in to see how they'd look!
First I tried them with a mirror in between:

Not such a fan of the mirror there. But the lanterns show promise... and I love the yellow pillows since my other couch in that room is yellow. Why didn't I ever think of that before?!

Then I tried the sconces with a little (err... LOT of) animal print:

WHOA!! I kind of love that... though it IS all a little large. I mean, I want to fill the space, but three big pieces (and that zebra print should properly be scaled larger since the sconces are 4 feet long and the zebra is actually 5 feet wide!) may just take over the room a bit too much.

I wish they had a smaller version of those lanterns, maybe 3 feet long would be good... OR a location in MA! Then I could just try them out for real!

And while I pondered all that I had the thought that I could go back to my original idea of a group of smaller prints and use Indian Miniatures like I did in the bathroom.

We won't be back in India until next winter at the soonest, but maybe I'll have a look around Jackson Heights while we're down in NY for Passover next month.


These are actually post cards! But 8x10 prints usually aren't too terribly expensive (for prints or lower quality paintings, anyway. High quality miniatures can get quite pricey!) Hmm... so many possibilities!