Irwin Weiner ASID -- It's always easy to decorate when you have so many ready-made furnishings and accessories to choose from. We take it for granted that we can walk into any dealer or showroom, and pick up any catalog and either order what we want, all ready to go, or slightly customize an item with a few minor tweaks.

Today's economy might make us look towards other solutions, and apply a bit of imagination while saving some money. I recently had a client ask me to find a large tapestry to hang in the blank marble expanse above a fireplace, partially filling the void between the mantle and the top of the room's tall cathedral ceiling.

Good tapestries cost a fortune, and I didn't want to break my client's budget or burden him with a request to "fork over the cash" for an extravagant decorator piece. After almost giving up the search and settling on an expensive but great item, I came across two tapestry fragments on the 1st Dibs website. What a find!

The creative lobe in my brain began to kick in and I crafted