How To Rearrange
A Room
LUCKY is the man or woman of taste who has no inherited eyesores,
which, because of association, must not be banished! When these
exist in large numbers one thing only remains to be done: look them
over, see to what period the majority belong, and proceed as if you
wanted a mid-Victorian, late Colonial or brass-bedstead room.
To rearrange a room successfully, begin by taking everything out of
it (in reality or in your mind), then decide how you want it to
look, or how, owing to what you own and must retain, you are obliged
to have it look. Design and color of wall decorations, hangings,
carpets, lighting fixtures, lamps and ornaments on mantel, depend
upon the character of your furniture.
It is the mantel and its arrangement of ornaments that sound the
keynote upon first entering a room.
Conventional simplicity in number and arrangement of ornaments gives
balance and repose, hence dignity. Dignity once established, one
could afford to be individual, and introduce a riot of colors,
provided they are all in the same key. Luxurious cushions, soft rugs
and a hundred and one feminine touches will create atmosphere and
knit together the austere scheme of line the anatomy of your room.
Color and textiles are the flesh of interior decoration.
In furnishing a small room you can add greatly to its apparent size
by using plain paper and making the woodwork the same color, or
slightly darker in tone. If you cannot find wallpaper of exactly the
color and shade you wish, often it is possible to use the wrong side
of a paper and produce exactly the desired effect.
In repapering old rooms with imperfect ceilings it is easy to
disguise this by using a paper with a small design in the same tone.
Ret perfectly plain ceiling paper will show every defect in the
surface of the ceiling.
If your house or flat is small you can gain a great effect of space
by keeping the same color scheme throughout that is, the same color
or related colors. To make a small hall and each of several small
rooms on the same floor different in any pronounced way is to cut up
your home into a restless, unmeaning checkerboard, where one feels
conscious of the walls and all limitations. The effect of restful
spaciousness may be obtained by taking the same small suite and
treating its walls, floors and draperies, as has been suggested, in
the same color scheme or a scheme of related keys in color. That is,
wood browns, beiges and yellows; violets, mauves and pinks;
different tones of grays; different tones of yellows, greens and
blues.
Now having established your suite and hall all in one key, so that
there is absolutely no jarring note as one passes from room to room,
you may be sure of having achieved that most desirable of all,
qualities in interior decoration repose. We have seen the idea here
suggested carried out in small summer homes with most successful
results; the same color used on walls and furniture, while exactly
the same chintz was employed in every bedroom, opening out of one
hall. By this means it was possible to give to a small, unimportant
cottage, a note of distinction otherwise quite impossible. Here,
however, let us say that, if the same chintz is to be used in every
room, it must be neutral in colors chintz in which the color scheme
is, say, yellows in different tones, browns in different tones, or
greens or grays. To vary the character of each room, introduce
different colors in the furniture covers, the sofa-cushions and
lampshades. Our point is to urge the repetition of a main background
in a small group of rooms; but to escape monotony by planning that
the accessories in each room shall strike individual notes of
decorative, contrasting color.
What to do with old floors is a question many of us have faced. If
your house has been built with floors of wide, common boards which
have become rough and separated by age, in some cases allowing dust
to sift through from the cellar, and you do not wish to go to the
expense of all-over carpets, you have the choice of several methods.
The simplest and least expensive is to paint or stain the floors. In
this case employa floor painter and begin by removing all old paint.
Paint removers come for the purpose. Then have the floors planed to
make them even. Next, fill the cracks with putty. The most practical
method is to stain the floors some dark color: mahogany, walnut,
weathered oak, black, green or any color you may prefer, and then
wax them.
This protects the color. In a room where daintiness is desired, and
economy is not important, as for instance in a room with white
painted furniture, you may have white floors and a square carpet rug
of some plain dark toned velvet; or, if preferred, the painted
border may be in some delicate color to match the wall paper. To
resume, if you like a dull finish, have the wax rubbed in at
intervals, but if you like a glossy background for rugs, use a heavy
varnish after the floors are colored. This treatment we suggest for
more or less formal rooms. In bedrooms, put down an inexpensive
filling as a background for rugs, or should yours be a summer home,
use straw matting.
A room with modern painted furniture is shown here. The lines and
decorations are Empire. Note the lyre backs of chairs and headboard
in day bed. Treatment of this bed is that suggested where twin beds
are used and room affords wall space for but one of them.
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