HANGING PICTURES
A correct method of hanging pictures
How to Hang Pictures.—If wire be used for hanging pictures, it should be as small and inconspicuous as possible. In place of the braided steel wire, which may be needed for large pictures, a single brass or copper wire is much to be preferred for those of lighter weight. In all cases where the wire shows it should appear as two vertical lines against the wall and not as a single wire bent over a single hook in the form of an inverted V, so commonly seen and so manifestly failing to conform with any lines of a room. Levelling the picture may be easily managed by using only one wire, making it continuous through the screw eyes on the back of the picture. These screw eyes should be placed near the top of the frame—about one sixth the whole vertical width of the picture from the top—so that the picture may hang nearly flat against the wall. Whenever possible, however, pictures should be hung without showing the wire at all. This may be easily managed without seriously marring the finish of some rooms by driving two fine finishing nails in the part of the lower wall which is to come directly behind the top of the picture, allowing them to project about 1⁄2 of an inch and bending them up a little with a pair of pliers so that the wires will not slip off. Choice, small pictures may be hung in this way on fine upholstery tacks. It is often possible, when the wire must be exposed, to stop it just below the dado cap and thus avoid showing the wire over the frieze. Whenever it is necessary, as it often is, to suspend wires by means of the so-called picture hooks from a picture moulding or cornice strip placed above the frieze, some attention should be paid to the colour of these hooks. Bright metal hooks showing over a delicately coloured moulding are in bad taste. Some people prefer to use the inverted V suspension in order to reduce the number of these picture hooks. But it is far better to retain the straight, fine, and nearly invisible wires and colour the hooks to make them less conspicuous.
In determining the height of pictures it is only necessary to remember that they are placed upon the walls to be enjoyed. While monotony in height is to be avoided, the average eye level should not be disregarded. The frontispiece illustrates an effective placing of a picture in the dining-room of the model house.
[IV]
THE ARRANGEMENT OF FLOWERS
"I know not which I love the most,
Nor which the comeliest shows;
The timid, bashful violet,
Or the royal-hearted rose;
"The pansy in her purple dress,
The pink with cheek of red,
Or the faint, fair heliotrope who hangs,
Like a bashful maid, her head."