Hallways: Yet Another Hallway Detail

Inness' Medford Mass.

This past spring the hallways and stairwell were redone - finally. But, like most projects, there was still a matter of some details that needed to be completed, and in the case of the hallways it's just a matter of decor.   The end of the upstairs hallway has always been a bit of a decorating challenge, at least for me!

(And no - the cordless drill was not a design element!)  When we first bought 173, there was a full length mirror on that wall with a small fluorescent light above it.  I took both down when we painted it the first time back in about 1999, and when I was re-installing the mirror I tightened one of the wall clips juuust a little too much and - CRACK! - there she went.  It was too bad too, the mirror was an old, heavy model with a nice beveled edge - leave it to me.  Since then, that end of the hallway has essentially been blank.  When the hallway was finished earlier this year, I installed a new sconce...

...which matched the downstairs hall light...

Details in the picture must be elaborated only fully enough to produce the impression that the artist wishes to produce. When more than this is done, the impression is weakened or lost, and we see simply an array of external things which may be very cleverly painted, and may look very real, but which do not make an artistic painting. The effort and the difficulty of the artist is to combine the two, namely to make the thought clear and to preserve the unity of impression. - George Inness

I prattle on because I want to point out the primary cause for that wall of the hallway being such a decoration challenge.  You see, when I took out the old mirror and light, I wanted a switch to work the light box.  I was still pretty new to remodeling, so I put in a switch at the nearest possible point:

Putting both the sconce and the switch at just the proper height and placement for hanging pictures.  I thought about changing it all, but then thought that 173 is full of oddities, and this is just another harmless one! 

But then there was the challenge of how to make that wall less empty.  Then one even I was watching an episode of Frasier, and noticed this in Niles' office:

A sconce similar to the one here at 173, right about the spot you'd hang a picture, but oho!! I never thought of hanging one below the sconce!  Brilliant!  And I knew just the picture I wanted, a longtime George Inness work called Medfield Massachusetts:

It's always been one of my favorite paintings, and the colors fir perfectly with the hallway, so up it went!  Here's a shot in daylight:

It gets a little washed out, but it still looks awesome, but it really pops in the evening with the sconce turned on!

There - that end of the hallway finally looks better!

NOTE:  It gets even better...check out the accent table I build in March 2019, specifically for this spot!