Sales at the Wexler Gallery in Old City have been flat of late. Proprietor Lewis Wexler isn't complaining — it's all by design. In May, the gallery, best known for furniture and glass, added flat art to its showroom.

Wexler's wife, Sherri, who now curates their array of paintings, prints and photography, instigated the change. "We wanted to bring a new dimension to the gallery," she explains.

Adding flat art made perfect sense, considering that these two met while working at Christie's auction house, where Sherri specialized in prints. She's got a trained eye for this sort of thing, and it shows — paintings here are by mature art makers.

That's what you'd expect at this high-end gallery, but what's surprising is the relative affordability of the work. This is a place where a gorgeous handmade desk can set you back $20,000 or more. Meanwhile you can pick up a decently sized painting for under $2,000.

Lewis explains that the modest price points were inspired by all the new condos going up in Philadelphia — that means an influx of new walls to decorate. "We wanted to have a price range where a young person or a new collector would be comfortable purchasing work," he says.

Their original plan was to convert the second floor into a flat art gallery. However, an interior decorator friend who was helping Sherri set the space up suggested it would be more dynamic to incorporate their furniture and glass pieces so that people could envision how the two-dimensional art might look in a home environment. There are now vignettes of paintings and objects around the place, such as a large, striated abstract painting in front of which sits a polymer clay and wood circular side table topped by a glass bowl. All share a muted earth-tone color palette as well as complementary design qualities. Sherri observes that the bowl is "very ethereal, there's a lot of texture going on and it's sort of below the surface, very much like the painting."

Pieces by more than a half-dozen painters and photographers (including Kevin Cooper, Margot Nimiroski, Lisa Tyson Ennis and Jenny E. Balisle) currently adorn the walls, and rather than change the works monthly, as happens with many art spaces in Old City, the Wexlers intend to leave things be for a while. "We don't have a deadline of when it's time to change," says Sherri. "You have to go with your gut," adds Lewis. "There may be a piece we absolutely love that we'll give a longer time to sell. It's like dating — you just have to find the right person to connect with the piece."