Collected Look Essentials #4 - Artwork

Today I want to continue to talk about the series I started a couple of months ago on how to achieve a house with a "collected" look. To me, the ideal house is one which looks personal, and unique, and not like someone just ordered everything from a catalog. Just to refresh, in the first three posts I talked about how every room needs something vintage and/or antique, that even the most antique-y rooms need something modern, and lastly, how every house needs a collection (or two) to help achieve that "collected over time" look. That leads us to today. And today, I'm talking about art (something I'm quite a fan of, actually!) I think every house needs at least some real art. I know that it's very much the trend right now to have only other items on the walls; mirrors, letters, numbers, plates, or wood or plaster fragments, and although I love all of those items, I still believe a house should have some actual art. I have spoken to quite a few people about this and what seems to be the case is that they are actually afraid! They might buy a print at Home Goods, but they don't know how, or where to start, in buying real art. Now lest you think I mean expensive, I definitely don't. True genuine paintings, whether they be oil or watercolor, can be purchased very inexpensively if you shop antiques or resale stores, buy on Ebay, or even at garage sales. In fact, many times they are the same, or even less money, than buying a print at a catalog store. There is something that art brings to a space that, literally, nothing else can do. First of all, there is color. Most of the things above don't bring color to a room. Since I personally have a mostly white and/or neutral house, many times the colors in the artwork are one of the few ways I've brought color to the room. Art also brings a depth that inanimate objects simply don't have. Art is alive. A piece (or two) of art in a room can make the room! When I was growing up (and certainly before), people decorated only with art. You couldn't go to a Home Goods or World Market and buy a cute reproduction map, or a cool mirror, or giant letters. And I will grant you that many houses in the past had too much art (it can definitely go the other way!). But a mix of new and found wall decor that isn't art, mixed in with real, actual paintings, well, it just doesn't get any better than that! Shall we take a look?