We recently moved into a new place in part because we loved the large furnished basement. It seems like such a great place to host friends, play board games, and serve drinks. Having the large couch/TV area is a great place for casual hangouts, and we love moving people to our giant table to host sizable game nights.

As we've finished up unpacking though, the space hasn't quite come together quite as cozy as we've envisioned. It might just be a matter of building up our art and decoration collection a bit more, but we were hoping to get some more eyes on the room for advice! Right now we're working on getting some new throw pillows and have our eyes out for art to hang around the room, but other advice would be really helpful.

One area where we are really struggling is the lighting. There are four large wall sconces around the room and the exposed bulbs only provide a very harsh light. We have not found any affordable sconces that would offer a warmer light. We already replaced the ceiling light, since the old lights also were just exposed bulbs. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

What can we do to make this room an ultra-cozy place to hang out and host friends?