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It's easy to get used to the way things are. Years ago, and in a previous life, I lived in an apartment in Chicago. It was a nice place, old wood floors, iron radiators and a leafy street outside. Being young, my wife and I had filled it with cheap furniture, a TV, some bookshelves and more or less called it done.

We lived in that apartment for years, and there was something missing. The walls were bare as a skeleton hanging in a science lab.

It's not that we had nothing to hang on them, we'd been gradually accumulating photos and art prints while we lived there. But I was lazy and we never got around to hanging them. Until one day, I decided it was high time that job got done.

A couple of hours later, the apartment was transformed. What had felt like a place we just stayed in now felt like a real home. I'll never forget my amazement at just how much comfort a few pictures on the walls could bring!

As time has gone on, and a few moves (including one back across the Atlantic) later, I've never forgotten that lesson.

You shouldn't either! A beautiful photograph hanging on your wall will transport you to another time and place. Maybe it's back home if you're living away like I was. Maybe it's to where you proposed to the love of your life. Maybe it's a window to your imagination.

It may seem like a luxury to spend a lot of money on something like this, but there are hidden benefits to your mental well-being in looking through that window to another world.