The Essentials of Home Decorating

The Essentials of Home Decorating

Suitability: the foundation of good taste, it is nothing more than common sense in decoration. By this standard of common sense are our homes judged. The wall covering must suit the architecture, the hangings the wall covering, the furniture and upholstery the hangings, and the bric-a-brac the furniture. This, however, is not always possible to determine purely upon feeling and needs to be studied.

If the architecture of a room is of a period where lightness of tone, trim and ornament prevail, the furniture should be light in construction and delicate of line and ornament as well as of upholstery. A small patterned damask suits a lightly built mahogany chair better than would a large patterned, heavy velour of deep color. A heavy oak sideboard, however interesting in detail of carving and warmth of color, will never look well against delicate ivory paneled walls; many Colonial dining-rooms have been spoiled by ugly, heavy golden oak furniture. The same rule applies to hangings. A figured satin damask is not in good taste in an informal country living-room, whereas figured linen, which a few years ago was used exclusively in bedrooms, now is used with good taste in every room in the house.

The pattern also must suit the architectural details as well as the size and use of the room itself. A large Jacobean patterned linen will not be harmonious in a small bedroom with narrow striped, delicately toned papered walls; the size, use and background of the room call for something more in the line of a small floral design linen of delicate colors. On the other hand, a little mincing pattern in pink and blue will look pitiful in an oak wainscoted library. The colors and pattern of the hangings must agree in feeling with the background. The same is true of upholstery, for not only the chair but its covering must be suitable to the whole room.

Durability is the second requirement for good home decorating to be considered. We should decorate with a view to permanence. The effort of selection and the cost of making up justify good goods. An inexpensive domestic cretonne will cost half the price of an English or French print or linen, but it will fade and wear in washing and will often be of an inferior design. Yet durability need not necessarily depend on cost. A chair of good lines in mahoganized birch will give more wear and may look better than a brocade and gilt chair at three times the price.

The third issue, what constitute the main essentials in a room, the main essentials on which money and time must be spent, and the non-essentials on which we can go cheap on and carry out budget home decorating?

The most costly and essential expenditures are those for reconstruction and remodeling.

If a room has a huge, awkward, gory red fireplace where a small, white-shelved, unobtrusive one should be, the only thing to do is to tear the offender out and replace it with something appropriatenot necessarily expensive, but suitable to the room.

If a door is absolutely too narrow to give a drawing-room dignity of approach, it should be widened without a qualm. If, however, the door seems narrow because the trim as well as the opening itself is narrow, a handsome wide trim and cornice might be added to lend an important effect to the entrance and give the general appearance of a wide door.

Should the room have wretched lighting on account of inadequate window openings, a window should be cut in the most exposed side where all the light possible may be had. Again, the windows may be numerous but badly placedseveral small ones scattered about one side of the room. In this case a window may be added between two of these, forming a group. If this makes the central window large, all the better, as the top may be made semicircular with good architectural effect. Be careful, however, that the added window or door is of the same style of architecture as the rest of the house.

If the room is badly shaped, an adjoining set of closets or hall space may be included in a new room formed by tearing down partitions, or two small rooms may be made into one. In old country houses, where the rooms are apt to be box-like, this alteration is particularly advisable. The "parlor" and dining-room thrown into one form a very pleasant room in which the dining-table may be placed at one end and the rest of the room left open for use when the porch is not used as a living-room. In city apartments this also is done when a living-room is too small for entertaining and the dining-room gets very little use.

It is on constructive features that the initial expense is large and that the greatest improvements are often made. They give "tone" to a room, for unless the abominations of red brick fireplaces, narrow doors and skimpy windows are dealt with severely, an interior is hopeless of real success.

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