I bought the wire today. We'll see how dh does with it tonight :) He just loves being hit with projects after a long day at work, lol. I do have another place for it. I THINK. The space where this pic is, right when you walk in the door. I wanted a mirror there originally. But, dh liked this pic there. So, I caved :)I'd then have to ditch the picture completely because there's literally nowhere else for it. (it's the one we tried over fireplace, and didn't care for) Oh, and the ugly little pine table is out of here. As soon as dh builds my bookcases behind the couch :) maybe something on a canvas, that doesn't have a frame may work better? I'll keep looking if the mirror doesn't work out.

I keep coming back to the Alizah mirror at PB (the second one I linked to, not the first). I like the fact that it's "none of the above" in terms of wood finish or metal...and it will bring some additional color into the room. It's a couple inches larger than the painting I have there now. Best of all we have Amex points that I can use to get it for "free." Just wish I could see it in the store but it's online/catalog only. Worst case scenario, I'm pretty sure I can return it to the store if necessary. I moved the little pottery buildings to another shelf this morning and parked a smaller mirror up there just to see what a mirror would "feel" like, and honestly it was almost shocking how it changed the room. I oughta know this by now but I was still surprised at the effect. Even moving the houses elsewhere and instead, putting 3 simple items on the mantel this morning, made a nice difference. This fall I'm doing a lot of editing and simplifying around my house. I'm the queen of tchotchkes and I need to rein it in a bit. I really appreciate everyone's input. Everyone here is so helpful in helping me to see my own house in a way that I'm sometimes unable to see it. In some ways it's a lot harder to decorate my own space than to work in someone else's home. Weird, isn't it?

Well lets see. I'd say a very ornate mirror with curlicues and cherubs. And in gold of course. And it should be at least 5' high x 3' wide. The more ornate the better.

Update - will be drywalling over the speaker-cubbies. Painting the others to match the trim. Again, thanks to JTerri, whose mockup had me running off to dial our carpentry guy! Thank you, Lascatx. Its been a long post and you may have missed it, but I think we will either move to a city or a warm climate in the next 2-4 years, so not wanting to invest in anything. Especially rugs which are really hard to reuse in new spaces IME. Jterri, I think a piece of modern art could work well, but the odds I will find something i really like, that fits, at a price where I don't care if i can't reuse it in a few years, are kind of nil. But I will give it some thought, as maybe I could do a print. Also thinking of wallpaper/mural. Robo et al, I was thinking about my rug inventory. Their style is not the direction I was thinking of, but they could be worth looking at (and changing direction for). It occurs to me I have a fairly blank slate and a room with so much light. The only color/pattern is from a few throw pillows (easy to toss) and the ticking on the windowseats (neutral). There are three large off white masses -- sofa, ottoman and round table w tablecloth -- that obscure a lot of the rug and so perhaps could tone it down? So I could go with a rug that has a lot to say. For example here are 2 in inventory. The DR rug shown below was in my MBR here for a while, until i changed to a less feminine scheme w a rug I got in India. Here's the rug 10 yrs ago in my old DR in my first house. This one is really ummm, quite ... aggressive in its design. But OTOH I think the floral OTT quality goes with the highly feminine OTT vibe of my octagonal, cupola'ed, windowseated room. PS ....Wow, looking at these rooms, I think I know how I became a colorphobe! My eyes hurt. Psssst, and would you believe, my DR was a rouge color just before the photos above? Not sure I ever posted this before. In my defense it was actually a reddish pink.