A Lesson In Scale

In our living room we have a "fauxrplace."  Really, I just made that up. But it is! Nothing is as it seems. Some day I will have to write a whole post about the fauxrplace, but today I want to talk about a specific part and that's the mantel.

I love having a mantel, but this one is extremely difficult to decorate. So on one hand I love it, but on the other hand it is the thorn in my decorating side. The way the mantel was installed, it is very shallow along most of it. It's barely deep enough to hold the shutters and word art that I have on it now. Trust me, they're holding on for dear life! Only on the ends is it deep enough to really hold anything, but still not much. For years I've had candle sticks on each end. The ones on the right were a gift from the Hubster for our first Christmas in this house.....which was almost ten years ago. That tells you how long they've been there!

                

But I've always felt that they were not the right size for this massive stone wall we have. The scale was totally off. They got swallowed up by all that stone. Scale is something I often have trouble with. I think too small. This room has high vaulted ceilings, a large staircase, and the stone wall. I need to remember to think bigger so items make a bigger impact in the room.

See what I mean? Those poor candlesticks just look so puny.

For a while now I've though that a pair of large lanterns might look nice. So I've been keeping my eyes open for them. Because the space on the mantel is so tight, they would have to be just the right ones. They needed to be large enough to have an impact, but with a small enough base.

Yesterday I found them at my nearby TJMaxx!

I think they make a big difference, don't you?