Symmetry....

...I'm a sucker for it.  And the lack of it leaves me with a very unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I'm trying to expand my horizons and convince myself that sometimes asymmetry can be even more beautiful than symmetry, but I'm not quite there yet. 

A perfect example of my discomfort with asymmetry came in the form of my living room sofa/window combo, pictured here below:

I blog about this sofa in an earlier post here.  After posting images of my living room onto HGTV's Rate my Space, the overwhelming suggestion I received for solving my symmetry dilemma was to use curtain panels to "cheat" the location of the window so that it looks like it is centered over/behind the sofa.  So I decided to give it a go.  I ended up purchasing an 8-ft long wooden curtain rod painted black from JC Penney.  I hung the rod close to the ceiling, centered above the SOFA (NOT the window - this is important!).  I then proceeded to try out several curtain options -

Testing out a couple of my Target curtain options - they were actually tablecloths, but I figured if I really liked them I could make them work - I didn't like them.

- from Target, World Market, and Ikea, before settling on a nice (long - 96") set from Ikea (only 49.99 for the pair!).  I evenly spaced each panel on either end of the rod, and here's the result:

Obviously, you can see by the light streaming through the right hand curtain panel where I "cheated" the window, but at night you can't tell at all.  I was worried that the living room would feel darker with the loss of light from the portion of the window that ended up being covered by the curtain, but thanks to the material of the curtains ( I think they would be called semi-transparent?) there doesn't appear to be much of a difference. 

I've now accomplished my desire for symmetry through the curtains, lamps, chairs, and ottomans - but - big deal here - I'm trying to get comfortable with the asymmetry currently existing in the form of the two different side tables.  We'll see how long I can last....oh, and please ignore the painter's tap you see on the right hand side of the picture above - I'm not trying to save on paint by decorating with tape - I've got another project in the works in this room...