Avoid In Interior Decoration
WE
all know the saying that it is only those who have mastered the
steps in dancing who can afford to forget them. It is the same in
every art. Therefore let us state at once, that all rules may be
broken by the educated the masters of their respective arts. For
beginners we give the following rules as a guide, until they get
their bearings in this fascinating game of making pictures by
manipulating lines and colors, as expressed in necessary
furnishings.
Avoid crowding your rooms, walls or tables, for in creating a home
one must produce the quality of restfulness by order and space.
As to walls, do not use a cold color in a north or shaded room. Make
your ceilings lighter in tone than the sidewalls, using a very pale
shade of the same color as the sidewalls.
Do not put a spotted (figured) surface on other spotted (figured)
surfaces. A plain wallpaper is the proper, because most effective,
background for pictures.
Avoid the mistake of forgetting that table decoration includes all
china, glass, silver and linen used in serving any meal. In
attempting the decoration of your dining-room table avoid anything
inappropriate to the particular meal to be served and the scale of
service. Do not have too many flowers on your table, or flowers not
in harmony with the rest of the setting, in variety or color.
Do not use peasant china, no matter how decorative in itself, on
fine damask or rare lace. By so doing you strike a false note. The
background it demands is crash or peasant lace.
Avoid crowding your dining table or giving it an air of confusion by
the number of things on it, thus destroying the laws of simplicity,
line and balance in decoration.
Avoid using on your walls as mere decorations articles such as rugs
or priests' vestments primarily intended for other purposes.
Avoid the misuse of anything in furnishing. It needs only knowledge
and patience to find the correct thing for each need. Better do
without than employ a makeshift in decorating.
Inappropriateness and elaboration can defeat artistic beauty but
intelligent elimination never can beware of having about too many
vases, or china meant for domestic use. The proper place for table
china, no matter how rare it is, is in the dining room. If very
valuable, one can keep it in cabinets.
Useless bric-a-brac in a dining room looks worse than it does
anywhere else. Your dining room is the best place for any brasses,
copper or pewter you may own.
If sitting room and dining-room connect by a wide opening, keep the
same color scheme in both, or, in any case, the same depth of color.
This gives an effect of space. It is not uncommon when a house is
very small, to keep all of the walls and woodwork, and all of the
carpets, in exactly the same color and tone. If variety in the
color-scheme is desired, it may be introduced by means of cretonnes
or silks used for hangings and furniture covers.
Avoid the use of thin, old silks on sofas or chair seats. Avoid too
cheap materials for curtains or chair covers, as they will surely
fade.
Avoid too many small rugs in a room. This gives an impression of
restless disorder and interferes with the architect's lines. Do not
place your rugs at strange angles; but let them follow the lines of
the walls.
Avoid placing ornaments or photographs on a piano, which is in
sufficiently good condition to be used.
Avoid the chance of ludicrous effects. For example, keep a plain
background behind your piano. Make sure that, when listening to
music you are not distracted by seeing a bewildering section of a
picture above the pianist's head, or a silly little vase dodging, as
he moves, in front of, above, or below his nose!
Avoid placing vases or a clock, against a chimneypiece already
elaborately decorated by the architect, as a part of his scheme in
using the moulding of panel to frame a painting over the mantel. In
the old palaces one sees that a bit of undecorated background is
provided between mantel and the architect's decoration. If your room
has a long wall space, furnish it with a large cabinet or console,
or a sofa and two chairs.
Avoid blotting out your architect's cleverest points by
thoughtlessly misplacing hangings. Whoever decorates should always
keep the architect's intention in mind.
Avoid having an antique clock, which does not go, and is used merely
as an ornament. Make your rooms alive by having all the clocks
running. This is one of the subtleties, which marks the difference
between an antique shop, or museum, and a home.
Avoid the desecration of the few good antiques you own, by the use
of a too modern color scheme. Have the necessary modern pieces you
have bought to supplement your treasures, stained or painted a dull
dark color in harmony with the antiques, and then use dull colors in
the floor coverings, curtains and cushions. If you have no good old
ornaments, try to get a few good shapes and colors in inexpensive
reproductions of the period to which your antiques belong.
Avoid the mistake of forgetting that every room is a "stage
setting," and must be a becoming and harmonious background for its OCCUT pants.
Avoid arranging a Louis XVI bedroom, with fragile antiques and
delicate tones, for your husband of athletic proportions and
elemental tastes. He will not only feel, but also look out of place.
If he happens to be fond of artistic things, give him these in
durable shades and shapes.
Avoid the omission of a thoroughly masculine sitting room, library,
smoking-room or billiard-room for the man, or men, of the house.
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