My Eyes

"Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not every inch of my home needs to be decorated.

Yes, I said it. And I really mean it.

This is especially true when it comes to the space around our primary viewing screen, formerly known as the television. 

Yes, it's here that I sit and stare at Tommy Shelby as he rides away from the flames of his burning caravan on a big white horse, or at the streets of Hawkins, Indiana as they split wide open to reveal the fiery evil of the Upside Down.

What I'm saying is that there's already a lot of visual action packed into this corner of the house and I don't necessarily want to add a lot more details in the way of decor. My eyes need a place to rest.

But. There is such a thing as too bleak.

See what I mean? A white console, a little router, and a lurking black screen do not make for a cozy viewing environment. My eyes protest.

So I've been tossing around some ideas to warm this space up a little bit.

Now my default go-to for zhuzhing areas such as this would be to toss up a gallery wall. Surrounding the black frame with other black frames would go a long way to soften the Samsung effect. 

But that, I fear,  would create a new set of issues.

 

See? The TV wall, if you will, is a bitty little thing that opens on either side to reveal other areas. And those areas are full of details - open kitchen shelving to the left, and a little collection of family photos on the yellow wall of the front hall to the right.

(Now that my daughters have grown up and (mostly) flown the coop, I find it very useful to have small photos of each one of them near the front door. When guests come by who may not have met all four, I have an easy reference to fill in the knowledge gaps. )

My instincts tell me that any gallery wall energies would overwhelm my clutter radar, and mostly likely scramble my current efforts to make sense of what the feud between the Umbrellas and the Sparrows is really all about. 

So I threw the gallery wall idea out the window.

Or more aptly put, I threw it on the ground. 

And that's where I found true inspiration.

Instead of art on the wall, how about art on the console?

I grabbed a couple of pretty art books already on my shelf, and bought myself a few more because, wow, that's always fun, and styled myself up a flat lay gallery of beautiful images. 

I am in love with the finished effect. Every time I walk through the room, I smile down at the colorful covers and bask in their cheerful glow. 

But when I sit down to unravel the clues gathered up by roguish Luxemborgian cop, Capitani, the books all but disappear into the console top. 

The colors in the books line up with the background decor, so that feels soothing to my brain. My TV wall still feels clean and bare, but not quite as depressingly bland as it once did. 

Now, thanks to my flat lay gallery wall, my TV wall feels suitably decorated. And my eyes are happy indeed.