Decorate A Boring Wall

Painting your walls with solid colors is a great way to decorate a boring wall but one can also use sconce to make your wall look great too. When I was younger, my mum would never use anything like that because of her superstitions.  She feels that only dead people or an altar needs a sconce and if she would to see how we are using them liberally at our home, she would probably flip.   But how do one decorate a boring wall besides hanging pictures right?  I think using sconce are so much more sensible especially when they come on sale.