The greatest art work the individual has to do is the building of a home. “A small and inexpensive house may be the House Beautiful,” says Edmund Russell.

A famous architect once wrote that he could furnish a plan for a house of a given size and cost without knowing whether the owner was a millionaire or a day laborer. But if he wanted a home the case was different. “I desire then to know his antecedents, how he made his money, the size of his family, the number of his servants, and how his daughters spend their time: whether they are domestic, musical, literary or stylish. I want to know the number and quality of his guests, whether he drinks wine with his dinner, and his views on sanitary questions; for this home-building is not mere spending, it is the shaping of human destiny.”

In a home things must be beautiful and true and good, and as a celebrated art critic says, “related to us, belonging to us, expressing us at our best; our taste and culture, our personal likings, our comforts and needs, and not merely the high-tide mark of our purses.”

Fireplaces and Windows.

We are all of us by nature fire worshipers and the altar of every home is, or should be, the glowing, open fire. Next to this are the great, clear windows meant to admit the glorious glances of the fire worshiper’s sun.

As to the first, “if you can have but one, the house or the fireplace, give up the house and keep the fire. If you wish to test the soundness of this advice, build a house, furnish it extravagantly and supply furnace heat to all but one room, and in that room build upon an ample hearth a glowing fire of hickory logs, and in the presence of that genial blaze, upon the bare floor of that unfurnished room, will gather the united household.” The broader this family hearth the better. The old English baronial halls with their mighty fireplaces and their great stone hearths had more of light and beauty than all our modern improvements.

Next come the broad, open windows. Better one window five feet wide than two of two and a half feet. Better for light, warmth or interior furnishing, and better for the illuminating effect upon the whole apartment.

Stairways.

Stairs are a necessity, and their comfort and sightliness depend on several features. Steps must be broad and deep, landings wide and windowed, if may be. If they must be crowded into a narrow hallway it is better that they be made deep and sloping as space permits, and then inclosed with an archway and curtain at foot instead of a door. This also saves heat. But where the great square reception hall can be devoted to them they may be made a thing of beauty.

Woodwork.

Says one writer, “There is a widespread illusion gone out through the world that to have everything in a dwelling ‘finished in hard wood throughout,’ as the advertisements say, is the only orthodox thing. Paint smells of turpentine and heresy.” In this respect it is useless to deny that there is solid comfort in the permanency and genuineness of oak, walnut, or ash, that paint is powerless to give.

But the natural color of woods in many cases may fail to harmonize with the scheme of color to be carried out in the furnishings of the apartment.

In such case, the woodwork should be subjected to delicate, harmonious, painted tints, or polish or gilding, as the case may be.

There is a great variety of woods from which we may choose, but to obtain from them the finer shadings and combinations of color is difficult, not to say impossible.

There is no necessity for making the woodwork that is to be painted unnecessarily substantial or elaborate. Woods such as white maple, holly, poplar, for the light effects; black birch, cherry, mahogany, for darker.

“One fallacy among people,” says an architect, “is an immovable faith that the first duty of a human apartment is to look as high as possible. A cathedral, or the rotunda of the Capitol, must have height to produce an overpowering effect. But in an ordinary room of ordinary size, comfort, convenience and prettiness are more to be sought after than height.”

Ordinary woodwork must be painted in such shades as will debar it from occupying the prominent position to which positive beauty is alone entitled. Give it a similarity to the ground of the paper, but a little darker, and the rounded surface of any fancy moldings, a shade or two darker. Paint the doors the same, except the panels, which may be decorated, in which case they must be painted the tint of the furniture as a background for the design. This may be very simple, a band of color, a vine in outline or flat color. Trace the outline of wild vines, or ferns, anything graceful. Originality is not demanded. There are good reasons why window casings should start from floor or base, since in this way a visible means of support is given to the entire window, which otherwise has a suspended, insecure look. The panel underneath may be of wood or plaster.

Doors.

Doors are the greatest problem in a room. They monopolize the space on the floor and wall that should be free for pictures and large articles of furniture, and otherwise completely demoralize the apartment. To do away with this inconvenience substitute heavy curtains whenever an impassable barrier is unnecessary; closet doors, for instance, and those between parlors. Again, doors that are much open may be made to slide into the walls. Then, for ornament and as a screen, the doorway may be furnished with hangings, costly or not, as the purse may dictate.

The outer doors are intended as a defense from intrusion from without. It is not really good taste to have these doors of plate glass as that militates against the primal idea of strength and protection.

A Door Divan.

Chairs and sofas we have without end in variety and beauty. Every alcove and nook in every possible sort of room has been thought of and provided for except the one place that exists in almost every house and is the one place where people are always wanting to sit—that is the doorway itself. Folding doors between communicating rooms are seldom closed. An ordinary chair within a few feet of the space never looks well. It shows its back to one room or the other and is in the way.

A divan is an addition to any decorative arrangement of either room. It does not interfere with any graceful drapery that may be arranged at the door. It is decidedly useful, convenient and gives a certain touch of the unusual to the room.

An Improvised Bookcase.

A superfluous doorway or window too often mars the effect of a room, and the present day architecture, as found in cheap apartments and houses, frequently abounds in this sort of generosity.

To surmount the difficulty a very useful inclosure can be constructed by placing two uprights and a few shelves within the door jamb, or against it, as the case may be. Staining or painting them to match the rest of the woodwork is a small matter, while arranging brass rods and pretty curtains is not much more.

Screens.

Screens are a necessary object of household adornment. It is not requisite that they should be expensive, but the uses to which they can be put are legion. A plain frame of hard wood, or pine stained, rectangular, three or four inches wide and one inch thick, furnished with feet, and with or without castors, is all that is necessary. Covering may be done with a great variety of materials, cheap or dear. Ornamentation may be applied, embroidered, sketched, outlined, or painted. If the screen is made in two or three parts to fold like clothes bars, feet will not be necessary.

A rustic fire-screen is a unique affair, handsome and useful where there are open fires, as a shield from heat in cold weather, and as a screen for the emptiness of grate or fireplace during the summer. It is formed from natural branches, two straight and two crotched ones, from which all the smaller branches and twigs have been cut away so as to have but little more than protruding knots. When these are well seasoned, rub, brush and rebrush, both with a soft brush and a stiff one, to remove from every crevice in the bark every loose particle of moss and dust. Then, with liquid gold, gild the bark all over, or, if preferred, gild only the bare wood where it is exposed at the ends and where the limbs are cut off, and give a touch of gold to every crack or protuberance, or, if a smoother finish is desired, remove all of the bark and smoothly gild or enamel the whole surface.

The screen, suspended from the upper crosspiece, is a fringed silk rug woven on a hand loom, as old-fashioned carpets were woven. It falls freely from the top, its own weight keeping it in place, but it might be tied to the standards—half way down and at the upper corners—with bows of braid, soft ribbon or with heavy tassel-tipped cords, or a smaller rug without fringe might be suspended by gilt rings and finished at the bottom with a row of tassels in mingled shades.

In a small apartment, where the radiator is an objection, hang on the wall over it a large picture, placing before the unsightly heater a screen of not too high dimensions. If a space is too large for your picture, hang on either side a bracket, on which place a quaint jug or jar.

For a sewing-room, or, in fact, any apartment where the weekly mending is done, a darning screen is wonderfully commodious. Its conveniences consist of two capacious pockets, to hold stockings or any garment fresh from the laundry and needing attention; a handy shelf whereon to place one’s sewing, a tidy little cushion with scissors and loosely swung by ribbons to one side.

It is a delightful bit of property to serve one, while seated at an open window in summer time or upon an upper veranda with one’s work, looking out over the sea with the perfume of flowers in the air.

Trim the skeleton screen to harmonize with the fittings of the room.

A carpenter constructed the framework for the two panels, with the bar across the top, and the little shelf for twenty-five cents. The pine used was an old packing box. The panels must be three and one-half feet high and eighteen inches wide, made of strips three inches broad. The shelf should be eight inches wide and twelve inches long.

Four yards and one-half of chintz in cream-tinted ground, sprinkled with Dresden nosegays gaily dashed with pink and delicate green color, eight cents a yard. Four grades of delicate pink silesia and two and one-half yards of unbleached muslin for interlining, made an item of fifty cents. Hinges and corners and nail-heads of brass, satin ribbon and tacks, by considerable calculation, can be pressed into the amount of seventy-five cents.

A Saturday morning industriously spent in the upholstery of the little screen presented it in completeness.

Screens can be used to protect from drafts of air, by day or night, to keep the sun from an exposed spot on the carpet, to shade the light from weary eyes, to temporarily close archways that have no doors, and to conceal a door that is not often used. They will divide a large room into two small ones when a sudden influx of company arrives, or even close in a corner for the same hospitable emergency. They make delightful nooks in sitting-rooms for the little folks’ playhouse, or they may screen off, from the morning caller, a temporary sewing-room in the back parlor, and in sleeping-rooms, occupied by more than one person, a cosy dressing-room may be made by their use.

Draperies.

The new swinging portieres that have appeared have a handsome swinging crane fastened to the wall near the ceiling, upon which a portiere or curtain is suspended. This can then be swung back against the wall or swung out to make a cozy corner or to shut off one portion of a room from another. These swinging portieres can in many cases be made to take the place of screens and often fit with great advantage where a fixed portiere of the old sort could not be used.

The handsome cranes are of course more or less expensive, but a home-made substitute will answer the purpose very well. It is not exactly home-made, however, for the services of a blacksmith may have to be called in to bend the three-eighths inch iron rod into shape for use. The ends are bent to fit into screw eyes or other sockets fastened to the wall, upon which this improvised crane can be swung. The portiere is suspended from the iron rod by rings.

Denim is one of the best of all fabrics for a portiere in rooms constantly used. It may be washed out and will look quite as well as new. If you want a variety put one entire width in right side out, and split another and join to the first section, putting the side pieces wrong side out. Sew the seams, then fell them and featherstitch the outside of the seams in colored linen. Then with a teacup or saucer draw some circles, intersecting or lapping at one edge. Work these with linen in short stitches and make eccentric lines or spider-web lines from the central design. The edges may be hemmed or featherstitched or done in button-hole and cut out in scallops. It is better to have the edge of the facing instead of making a turned-in hem.

Then denim, as a floor covering, wears far better than low-cost matting and never becomes disagreeably faded; for, being made for hard usage, it but takes a quieter tone when other blues would surely fade into unpleasant, soiled-looking hues.

Some Useful Bits of Furniture.

A settee table of oak has an adjustable top, which can be turned over by the removal of two pegs, making a high back to the bench, whose deep seat is utilized as a household linen closet. These tables are in great demand where the saving of space is an object and come in various sizes. They can be purchased without the top and used as a window seat. One in a pretty studio of a woman artist in New York was most artistically treated. It was painted a dull green. The back and the lid of the seat were upholstered in an effective gold colored tapestry drawn over a padding of hair and held down by gimp and gilt nails, making a most artistic seat or table, as its use for either was required. Another one was stained green, and on the back and lid of the seat was used natural toned burlap, with stenciled griffins in dark brown as a decoration.

These tables may be treated in various ways to suit their surroundings. It is suggested in The Decorator and Furnisher that one stained the natural oak and upholstered in green rep, turcoman, corduroy, burlap or denim would be most attractive, or for green, substitute brown in the same materials and put on with dull brass nails, making an effective seat for a hall.

Another, painted white and enameled, would be charming in a blue and white dining-room. Upholster in dark blue denim with white nails, and fill with a number of pretty pillows in various designs of blue and white, and one of vivid scarlet to give a warm touch, which is needed in these coldly decorated rooms.

The lovely liberty chintzes in dark blue and white, and sometimes yellow, red and white on blue, are good to use on these settees, which are first painted black.

A Hanging Desk.

The economy of space necessary in apartment living has brought about the evolution of some remarkable pieces of furniture that may be useful in small houses anywhere.

The writing desk may be included in the list of household wonders directly attributable to the necessity of fitting that most useful household article in a six by ten apartment. When closed, it really occupies the very smallest amount of room imaginable, and for the young students’ use, or in flat bedrooms, where space is at a premium, it is unique and valuable.

The material may be oak or such wood as one fancies. Pine enameled in white or black is as good, so long as it matches the woodwork or furniture of the room. Two strips of the wood, each two inches by three feet, are attached to the wall by long screws. Across the top of these are placed three shelves about five inches wide, supported by brackets of brass. Between the two upper ones partitions are glued in to form pigeonholes.

From four to six inches from the lower end of each of the strips of wood is firmly placed a strip about two inches wide, to which is hinged the shelf that forms the desk. This is upheld when open by brass chains, and is thus made firm. When it is desired to close it, it is merely shut to the wall, the chains falling into place. The ledge upon which the lid is hinged forms a firm place for the inkstand and other necessary fitments of a desk.

Against the wall, between the supporting strips, may be fixed a Japanese panel or some tapestry or silk, as taste may dictate. A picture can be so fastened to the panel as to form a good letter or cardholder.

The whole affair is simple and easily managed. Any good carpenter will make the necessary woodwork for a very small sum.

A Window Desk.

One of the most convenient and altogether satisfactory contrivances quite in the power of a woman to manipulate is a window desk.

Take a board about fifteen inches wide and saw it the length of the window sill. Put small iron hinges on it and screw it to the sill, so that it can hang down against the under wall when desirable.

Tack a narrow strip of wood under the board, near the front edge. Resting on the floor and wedged under this cleat there is a prop of planed wood, slender and neat looking. You can put a beading around the board, with small brads and stain it cherry or some other color.

The sill holds pens, pencils and inkstands, and a large blotter laid on the board, is a most desirable writing pad. This idea comes from an art student in Paris, who dotes on her window desk.

It will be found useful in the nursery as a place for pasting pictures, drawings, etc., and when done can be swung down and out of the way.

A Hall Chest.

A pretty hall chest is one of the things that may be successfully produced at home. In a seaport town, the chest of some ancient mariner is easily procured; otherwise, one of similar style and make must be fashioned for you by a carpenter. As it need only be made of soft wood the cost is not great. After it has left the carpenter’s hands it may be decorated with the applied ornamentation in scroll design, which is now obtainable ready to put on, and afterward treated to a coat of stain.

Old oak is the most satisfactory, or it may be ebonized, if preferred. Polished brass corners and hinges may be added, and a row of brass nails set around the edge with good effect. The convenience of these chests for hall use has been accepted. They beautifully conceal rubbers, mackintoshes, a storm shawl and various unsightly but useful impedimenta of the hall rack, and if, in addition, a seat is desired, a strip of dark leather with a light pad beneath it may be set on with brass nails across the middle of the lid.

Cozy Corners.

They are so easy to arrange. Have your carpenter make a double right-angle bench, with a high, straight back. The seat must be two and a half feet wide, and the top of the back five feet from the floor. This now looks like an ungainly three-sided square, or rather oblong, for it is better to have one side somewhat longer than the others. The wood should be stained cherry or oak, to match the other furniture in the room, and oiled and polished so as to be smooth and of rich appearance; or, use hard wood, black walnut, ebony, mahogany.

The seat and inside back may be thickly and prettily upholstered, and then piled high with pillows, or, the wood having been nicely finished, the upholstery may cover the seat only. Be sure and have the seat made low, otherwise the Cozy Corner will be uncomfortable, its name will be belied, and no one will hie to what might have been the favorite seat in the room.

Now, where shall we place the corner? Put it in the space next to the grate fire, and since you have had this place in view, the side to fit in there should be made the requisite number of feet and inches so as to actually fit.

Placed in this part of the room, two sides of the corner are against the wall, but the third side presents a bare and uninviting appearance. This may be avoided by suspending a silk or gauze hanging close to its side, in the same way that the back of an upright piano is often screened. The seats should be piled with sofa pillows, and in the inclosure a few hassocks would not be found amiss.

The word cozy suggests warmth and pleasantry, as well as comfort. Therefore, this corner is always by the fire, and those occupying it are presumably cheery and happy.

It is just the place to rest in, just the place to read in, just the place for you and your dearest friend to chat in, just the place to play a game in, as bags, balls, etc., could easily be tossed from one seat to the other; just the place to lay plans in, for you are in no hurry to move, and so your plans, not being hurriedly completed, would be more apt to prove satisfactory; just the place to nap in, just the place to frolic in. Indeed, just the place to add to our already comfortable homes if we would have them one remove nearer the ideal home than they now are.

Plenty of Pillows.

All cosy corners and all couches are incomplete without numberless pillows of all sorts, shapes and sizes.

A serviceable pillow, and one that can be laundered, is of blue denim, with a band of Irish point embroidery running around the four sides of the square with the edge toward the center. A ruffle of denim with a narrow embroidered insertion to match the edge, completes this sensible head-rest.

An Indian silk pillow is always pretty, and is pleasant next to the face when one is lying down.

An open-work scrim with rows of ribbon placed upon the plain stripes, made over a contrasting color of silk, with ruffle of sheer lace over the color of the pillow, is effective and bright looking.

Any one who is fond of an Oriental effect can have it in the pillow by sewing silks and satins hit and miss, as in making an old-time rag carpet, then having it woven with black linen chain.

One who is expert with crochet needle can have a creation worthy of handing down for ages to come. Crochet a number of artistic wheels or medallions of knitting silk in a golden yellow shade; join together, making a square the size of the pillow desired. Place this lace cover over a contrasting shade of yellow, finishing the edges with yellow silk pompoms placed close together.

Yellow cheese cloth perfectly plain on both sides, with two ruffles of the same and a fullness of lace between, makes a dainty and inexpensive pillow; the under ruffle being six inches, lace ruffle five inches, and the top ruffle of cheese cloth three inches in width.

For the woman whose tastes run to the elegant, a pillow of silk-faced velvet and satin ribbon is grateful. A novel pillow is the clover pillow, but to carry out the idea as originally designed one must await the coming of the season when clover is at its fullest and sweetest blossom. Then gather the large red clover heads. Take as many as would fill a large washtub, sprinkle a pound of fine salt over them, and stir them well, about once a day, until they are thoroughly dried, without falling to pieces. This is the filling for a pillow made of white linen duck, embroidered with a straggling design of clover.

The convenient and ornamental floor pillow is especially adapted for the summer home, the piazza, the lawn or the lounging-room. The frame, which is made of good springs enclosed in a strong linen covering, is on casters, and can be readily moved from place to place. Covered with Baghdad stripes, tapestry, or any artistic material, it makes a Christmas present that would please the most fastidious taste.

A Corner Closet.

Lack of closet room in a house is a fruitful theme for complaint in these days of contracted space. Architects there are who are willing to sacrifice every consideration, not excepting internal utility, for picturesque outside effects.

In such cases recourse must be had to wardrobes, but as these are expensive, the busy fingers of the housewife must be depended upon to improvise substitutes. If there is a corner in the room with sufficient space (sometimes the architect denies us this small boon) it may be utilized in the manner herewith described.

Two strips of wood as long as you desire and four inches wide by one inch thick are screwed in the angle of the wall about six feet from the floor; boards are cut off to fit in the corner and resting on these strips; this will form the roof. A brass or wooden rod is then run across the front of this board from wall to wall and from which the curtain is suspended by rings. Cretonne, chintz or printed cotton, will make a good list to choose from, and are inexpensive. One may screw upon the underside of the roof and on the cleats as many hooks as are required, and, if desired, a shelf may be introduced about fifteen inches below the roof, and on that attach the hooks. Such an emergency closet will often be found a great convenience, and the cost will be trifling. It will be well to stretch a piece of muslin or paper across the upper side of the roof to keep out the dust.

A home-made Japanese cabinet may be readily made of the common materials found about the house, such as boxes of hard or soft wood. The smoother the boxes, the better; but they can be planed, if they are not.

The shelves are so arranged as to accommodate the different sizes of Japanese bric-a-brac. The small cabinet in the upper left-hand corner is simply a smooth bit of the board, finished with two ornamental hinges, either brass or bronze. The escutcheon is of the same. The circular panel can be either of Lincrusta, bronzed, or to make it a little more unique, a circular hole can be cut in the door, and a pretty blue Japanese plate inserted, held in place at the back, and the door lined. The supports are easily obtained by a visit to a factory where they have a turning lathe. The ornamental finish at the bottom is of lightly carved wood, if one can do these things, or a strip can be purchased at a carpenter shop or wall paper store. Still another way out of the difficulty is to get just the length of Lincrusta and tack it on neatly.

Before the hinges and escutcheon are put on, the staining should be done, and the simplest way out of the difficulty is to purchase Pik-Ron, stain whatever color or wood you require, then afterward give it a coat of varnish, coach varnish giving a durable finish that is heavy and beautiful, or the whole cabinet may be covered with the stamped Japanese cotton goods in gilt and colors, each shelf being covered before being put in place, and the uprights gilded or stained. Still again, if the work is of pine, it may be stained a rich bronze, and left with dead finish, which is a very fair imitation of Japanese woodwork.

Piano Decoration.

An upright piano should be placed with its back to the room. This position is not only good from a decorative standpoint, but a performer likes to be shielded by the instrument. Here are enumerated various graceful ways to cover the polished bareness of this musical instrument.

To hang a square of tapestry over the back from a brass rod is exceedingly striking. If possible, let the painted subject relate to music or sentiment, and have it sufficiently large to cover the surface of the piano.

If the tapestry is very fine work its surface should be unspoiled by additions. Across the top of the piano lay a scarf of Liberty silk, or another painted panel. The only bric-a-brac that combines with this drapery is a pair of candelabra, the quainter in style the better.

Algerian stripes, Baghdad tapestry or Persian prints make good backgrounds. Their cost is $1.25 a yard, and width fifty inches. With this as a foundation many schemes may be carried out. Bas-relief heads in plaster can be swung on it without injuring the wood of the piano. Medallions of Beethoven, Mozart or Wagner can be purchased for $1 each. A long panel of cherubs goes well, or a line of Delft or Japanese plates.

A low settle has a comfortable resting place underneath this. Either a box seat upholstered in dark, contrasting stuff, or one of the $4.50 green wooden settles, sold to artists, would serve. A number of cushions placed on the seat against the piano add to the coziness and grace of the decoration.

Lighting.

Rooms should be lighted from the sides, if possible. The great central chandeliers, casting their downward shadows, age every face in the room by emphasizing every line, and bringing out every defect sharply.

Decorating.

In decorating a room a harmony of the shades of one color should be used. Beware of spotty effects. It should really, according to Edmond Russell, “be conceived, as a piece of music is, in a certain key. There should be sympathy and harmony. Even the pictures should be chosen with as much regard to their surroundings as to their individual merits.”

Another important item in the decoration of the home is considering the choice of ground tones with reference to the complexion of its hostess. Guests appear there but casually. She is always there, and no one should elect to occupy a room, whose color tones either totally efface what little color one may possess, or else, by an exaggeration of natural ruddiness, be made a rival of the setting sun.

The effect of color upon the appearance is so important that every change of color, changes not only the color of the skin, but that of the hair and eyes as well.

Edmond Russell once studied a room with reference to complexions, mixing his paints to a relative hue with the general tone of complexions, making it duller and grayer, so that standing near it the skin looked clear and fresh beside it.

“I made the tone,” he said, “a little greener and colder than flesh, so that one looked lighter and warmer and was enriched by the contrast. Any who stood in front of that wall looked five or ten years younger than they were.”

In using a flower, or other design, for a frieze or dado, they should be conventionalized. This term is used to signify the modification of a real object with its surroundings. The more formal they are the better; no attempt at shading or perspective is necessary, and the square and compass should be used as much as possible in their designing.

In decorating a room, a dark floor is the beginning, and the walls grow lighter as the ceiling is approached. The richest effects should be congregated at the mantel, with the fire as its central object.

“The ability to combine is a rare one.” Ruskin writes truly that, “one rarely meets even an educated person who can select a good carpet, a wall paper, and a ceiling, and have them in harmony.” There is too much of a temptation to adopt beautiful things simply because they are beautiful, without pausing to consider the weightier matter of their eternal fitness, or remembering that a thing intrinsically beautiful in itself may become hideous by inharmonious proximity or combination with another beautiful object.

Home of the Soul.

A mystic German writer calls a house, properly ordered, the “home of the soul,” carrying out the idea that the house in which an orderly soul lives, is only an expansion of the body built and adorned out of her passing experiences. “All sorts of delicate affinities establish themselves between her and the lights and shadows of her abode; the particular picture on the wall; the scent of flowers at a particular window until she seems incorporated into it.”

In other words, one’s environments, as one’s dress, must be in harmony with their individual type, or a permanent discord will result; for instance, Emma Moffett Tyng speaks of a “pond-lily type of woman, soft color, gray blue eyes, pale brown eyes,” appealing to her as to the “effect” of the gorgeous, redecorated interior of her home, with flames of color in hangings and rugs, and “her Egyptian gown with its glow and glint of purple and gold. All these things were artistic and beautiful, and perfect in their relations to each other,” but in their relation to her nothing could have been worse. The woman, herself, was eclipsed, obliterated. “A Cleopatra, dark and flashing, would make the picture complete. But such a colorless woman needs repose in her surroundings; the low tones of blue and gray, the palest flush of the sunset heavens.”

Some Lovely Rooms.

Edmond Russell has treated two rooms exquisitely. A gold and ivory parlor, tinted, walls and ceiling in a grayish white with a greenish tinge, and this is mottled with gold flecked lightly over the surface. The broad frieze is adorned in free, simple style with leaves and blossoms of magnolia. Everything in this room should be light and delicate in color. The soft gold and ivory would be nullified by heavy walnut window casings; red and green carpet, red or blue plush furnishings, or vivid hangings would ruin the effect. Pictures in such a room should be preferably water-colors with pale gray mats, and gold or white frames. Oil paintings are only permissible when dreamy and vaporous in tint. Light, delicate colors in upholstery, creamy madras for curtains. The carpet may be a little darker, verging on some of the delicate, woody browns. Any bric-a-brac should be in pale shades of yellow or rose.

The tender lights of this room seem to clear and soften the complexion of the occupants.

Another is a dining-room of copper, bronze and terra cotta shades. A pale tint of copper to the background overlaid with dashes of bronze and strong copper color. The frieze is a succession of pine boughs, lightly fringed with their needles. Above the sideboard is a panel representing magnolia blossoms, and their heavy polished leaves, with brown in stem and shadows. The effect of this color scheme is to give a suggestion of warmth and cheer. The gold and copper used in flecking the wall are merely the two shades of the common bronze powder.

Still another nest of a sleeping-room comes to mind, a creation of Moscheles. Floor covered with white bearskin rugs, furnished with a delicate tint of robin’s-egg blue. Toilet table strewn with every imaginable luxury in old ivory and silver. Panels in the wardrobe and doors filled with paintings by Burne-Jones, classic figures given the preference.

These rooms are given as examples of harmony of coloring. Great expense is not always necessary to secure this artistic harmony. Money goes a long way, but good taste and ingenuity will go just as far, with a minimum of expenditure.

There is a little room, a symphony in green and gold, created by one girl’s taste, a pale seafoam green that is delightful to the eye. The woodwork, banded with a narrow strip of gilt, is of this color, and the enterprising young woman painted it all with her own hands. The curtains at the three windows are of the freshest and purest white muslin, prettily ruffled. They are the kind that always look as if they had just been laundered and they are tied back with pale green ribbons that make them look the more exquisitely neat. The floor is covered with plain matting, which particularly recommended itself, by the way, because it was inexpensive.

As to Furniture.

Every article of furniture in the room is of the prevailing green and there are no off shades, for they were all painted from the same can of paint. The bedstead was nothing but common pine, made to order at the factory, and it is of a quaint design that originated in the same fertile brain that is responsible for all the rest of the perfect appointments. The headboard is in the shape of a shield and there is painted thereon a spray of wild roses to bring to the sleeper over whom they bend sweet dreams of perpetual summer time. And the white counterpane and snowy pillows in the setting of green and gold make it a most inviting place of repose.

The chairs were resurrected from the dÉbris in the family attic. There are two heavy old-fashioned ones of curly maple, and they are cushioned with a brocaded green and gold material that exactly match the green of the furniture. Then there is a comfortable little rocking chair cushioned with the same material and painted in green with many stripes of gold.

But it is the dressing table that is the most charming of all the unique devices that make the room attractive. It was a battered old washstand at first, but now it is a work of art. It is painted, of course, in green and gilt, and there is a spray of wild roses on the front. Above it is a green and gilt framed mirror with a spray of the favorite wild roses again overhanging the top part. Over mirror and washstand and all is draped a canopy of white muslin. Among the other articles that find place on the table is a little fairy lamp with a shade of green tissue paper that gives the softest light imaginable.

A comfortable green window seat in the corner is well supplied with pillows covered in green and gold brocade, and up and around the window there clambers an old English ivy.

There is an oddly fashioned bookcase in another corner. You would never guess it, of course, but it was constructed out of two dry goods boxes. It is painted green inside and out and fitted up with four shelves. A green silk curtain hangs from a brass rod, and about the edge of the bookcase is a gilt cornice. The top is covered with bric-a-brac.

For pictures there is an etching or two on the wall in green and gold frames, and you have a room the very sight of which is cool and refreshing, and which cost its owner some time and some planning, but very little money.

Pictures.

Be careful of the pictures and their relations to the walls. Rooms should rather be a setting for a beautiful moving picture of the shifting groups of people in it.

Too much gilding, too many gaudy oil paintings attract the eye and distract the mind.

There is a simple picture in my room, red curtains, a white-robed child kneeling, that is all, but everything in it harmonizes, and it harmonizes with the furnishings of the room, and my eye is often drawn toward it.

One authority objects to portraits as a decoration. “Their presence, if at all impressive, is too stimulating.”

Picture frames should never be so gorgeous as to distract the mind from the picture. “Frames are to protect the picture and relate it to the walls.”

Group etchings together and put engravings in the portfolio. Over low bookcases pictures should be large, and in this form they give a style to the room. Water colors look admirable if treated in this manner, and if two bookcases are put together so as to form one, divide the pictures by a bracket, on which place a jar of some unique pattern.

Small rooms require medium-size pictures, which can be hung one above the other, and three may even be placed on line with good effect. For an ideal head in oil the frame should be of broad gilt. Hang it in a good light, and on one side group two small water-color pieces in the fashionable white band frame. For an oblong picture a small sketch under it looks well equipped.

A very large and beautiful picture sometimes sets the keynote of color for the apartment. Otherwise, subordinate them as decorations to the colorings of the room, as in the ivory and gold room.

In a room where there are to be many pictures, give rather a neutral color to the walls, merely as a picture background. Where there are finely decorated walls pictures are rather out of place, since one decoration spoils the effect of the other.

Mottoes.

The motto, whose revival is noted in the above title, is the expression in architecture of some sentiment suitable to the place to which it is applied. It is more frequently and more noticeably in domestic architecture than elsewhere that the motto is found. Scarcely a country house of sufficient size to boast a hall and fireplace but announces in script or text a welcome to all guests or some appreciation of the comforts of its four walls. The favorite place for this motto is over the fireplace, either above or below the mantel shelf, and of all the old ones, “East or west, home is best,” with its variety of expressions, is the favorite. “A man’s house is his castle.”

“A man’s best things are nearest him;” “Our house is ever at your service;” “You are very welcome;” “Take the goods the gods provide thee”—any one of these will as appropriately welcome the stranger as the friend.

Over the mantel of one’s private room the restful motto, “Duty done is the soul’s fireside,” may find appropriate place.