About 15 years ago I had the company I was working for buy me a world globe mounted in a stand. This thing is really nice. I don’t remember exactly how much it cost but it was way over a thousand dollars.
In any case here’s my predicament. I can’t fit it in what’s the nearest thing to a study that I have, and so I’d like to put it in the family room with a classy painting of a sailing ship above it. There’s a perfect niche for it, and it really looks good there, but I’m seriously concerned that this would be considered extremely gauche by an interior decorating guru.
So, would this be a major faux pas? Would sophisticates spit on me? Would I be mocked and reviled as a troglodyte?
What? No way! A globe that costs over $1000 is a piece of ART, not strictly a navigational tool.
Art should be placed where it can be appreciated. Like in your living room. Pairing it with a sailing ship painting - thus making a “theme” - is even cooler.
You go on and put your globe where people can see it!
It’s your house. Do what you want! We have a globe–not even a very nice one–in our living room. I like how it looks, and it’s extremely convenient when you’re trying to remember, for example, where the Azores are.
It sounds lovely! I think it will look very handsome. And, like an invasive weed, the theme may well spread its tendrils through the rest of the room and eventually throughout your home as you find Stuff That Looks Cool to go with the globe, painting, etc.
But, I have a tropeognathus hanging over my dining room table, so you really oughtn’t listen to me.
I’d be thrilled to have a globe like that in my house.
HGTV is always showing their “Dream House” with some kind of navigational-themed decorative item in it: a globe or a beautiful wall of maps or a sextant in an alcove. I don’t see why a globe would not be “allowed.”
We’ve always wanted one and NO WAY do we live in the Classy-Traditional style. The only thing stopping us is the fact that we simply have no room for it.
For Og’s sake, who the hell cares? It’s your house. Quite frankly, if you have friends who would look down their noses because of how you have your house decorated, you need a new group of friends.
Well, first of all I’d like to thank those who were kind enough to give me a constructive answer. To the rest who basically said “who cares what they think” I’m afraid I’m going to have to say “I care.”
I was lucky enough to be the second person to buy a lot in a pre-development lake and golf community that has since seventupled in value (the lot is by far the finest lakefront property and in the most upscale phase in the entire development) and I now find myself living in a house that I could easily sell for well over a million dollars. (Keep in mind this is in South Carolina)
My neighbors are pretty nice people but many of them are very wealthy and very sophisticated and I don’t like the thought of being mentally sneered at. May God help me, because I know I’ve been in houses that I’ve felt were extremely tackily decorated and I felt a mental sneer brewing in my incredibly superficial pea brain. So think of me what you may but I’m still looking for any good answers to my OP. Than you berry much.
One other thing. Most of the sites I’ve found say that a globe is a wonderful addition to a study, library or den. However not one them say anything about a family room. Hence my appeal to the dope.
In my childhood home, we had a globe in the family room. Don’t know if you have kids, but it was a great educational thing (even though we did end up breaking the stand). We would play games with it and everything.
I think a living room/family room should have conversational pieces–things you’d want company to see and ask about. Why put something that’s interesting away in a room where it won’t be noticed?
To that I say, what is the “family room” for? It’s for the family, right? To hang out together, to watch TV, to engage in activities? Having a globe in the family room - to use to explore and educate your children on, or even just yourself - seems to make a lot more sense in the room that you are in the majority of the time. Who hangs out in the study? Just the parents, probably.
Globes are freakin’ fascinating. I look at mine all the time. The next time someone says while watching a commercial about British Airways “Why do I have to fly over Newfoundland to get from New York to France? Why not just fly (pointing at flat map in the commercial) straight across?!” you can point to your globe in the family room and show them that the shortest route is the one “north.”
I can understand not wanting to appear provincial to your hoity-toity neighbors, but if they cannot see the beauty and value in a beautiful globe, then perhaps they shouldn’t be invited over, or at least keep them outside. The ones sneering at you shouldn’t be allowed in your house, right?
