I love this photo, the mix of the fabrics, colors, materials–it makes my house look so cozy.  But here’s the cold, hard truth…

I’ve got this wall in our family room that I’m not crazy about.  Actually, I have two walls out of 4 in this room that I’m not crazy about.  It feels obvious that I had to find something to try to fill the space.  People do actually sit in those chairs from time to time so that part is nice but they seem crammed together.  Part of the problem is what is on the wall it’s not balanced.  And one of the culprits is that light switch next to that blue shelf on the right.  See it?  Why, WHY?  It’s a switch that we use too.

When I have a place in my house {usually many} that doesn’t quite feel right here’s what I do:

  • stare at it a lot
  • think about how we need to use it
  • ask myself why it’s not working
  • think about what we have that could possibly work there
  • move stuff around until it feels right
  • put it on the blog and ask you for ideas

By the way, lots of you have asked about painting those shelves.  They are the Southern Living at Home things that I could never afford when everyone had them years ago, but then last year over the course of a month I found 3 {$1 each} at yard sales.  I just painted them with my armiore paint.

Anyway, back to my walls.  I’m not looking for perfection, otherwise I’d have to burn everything I own and start over, but sometimes, I just get the feeling that there is a better way, use, idea for a certain area.  A way that I will love, will serve our family, and that will actually feel right.  I really love this wall in my sister’s house.  Lucky her, she doesn’t have a ding a ling light switch.  She gets everything.

UPDATED::

Here are the chairs straightened and junk down from the walls–I need an intervention with the red plates, I put them everywhere.  Somebody stop me.

Is this better?  Is there too much space between the top of the chairs and the bottom of the frames?

Here goes, what would you do?  Please don’t tell me to burn everything and start over.