A wall may be simply tinted either with "distemper" colour, or oil colour "flatted." Distemper colour gives the best effect, and is much the cheapest, but it is not durable, and cannot be washed. Oil colour when flatted makes a nice wall, whether "stippled" or plain, and is both durable and washable. An entire wall should never be varnished.
I say that a wall can look well even if not decorated. Let me give one or two instances; but, perhaps, I had better give treatments for the entire room, including the ceiling, and not for the wall simply.
A good effect of a very plain and inexpensive character would be produced by having a black skirting, a cream-colour wall (this colour to be made of the colour called middle-chrome and white, and to resemble in depth the best pure cream), a cornice coloured with pale blue of greyish tint, with deep blue, white, and a slight line of red, and a ceiling of blue of almost any depth. The ceiling colour to be pure French ultramarine, or this ultramarine mixed with white and a touch of raw umber (the cornice blues to be made in the same way). The red in the cornice to be deep vermilion if very narrow (one-sixteenth of an inch), or carmine if broad.[24]
A room of a slightly more decorative character would be produced by making the lower three feet of the wall of a different colour (by forming a dado) from the upper part of the wall: thus, if the other parts of the room were coloured as in the example just given, the lower three feet might be red (vermilion toned to a rich Indian red with ultramarine blue) or chocolate (purple-brown and white, with a little orange-chrome); this lower portion of the wall being separated from the upper cream-coloured portion by a line of black an inch broad, or better by a double line, the upper line being an inch broad, and the lower line three-eighths of an inch, the lines being separated from each other by five-eighths of the red or chocolate.
I like the formation of a dado, for it affords an opportunity of giving apparent stability to the wall by making its lower portion dark; and furniture is invariably much improved by being seen against a dark background. The occupants of a room always look better when viewed in conjunction with a dark background, and ladies' dresses certainly do. The dark dado gives the desired background without rendering it necessary that the entire wall be dark. If the furniture be mahogany, it will be wonderfully improved by being placed against a chocolate wall.
The dado of a room need not be plain; indeed, it may be enriched to any extent. It may be plain with a bordering separating it from the wall, such as Figs. 57, 58, and 59, or the coloured border on Plate I. (frontispiece); or it may have a simple flower regularly dispersed over it; or it may be covered with a geometrical repeating pattern, in either of which cases it would have a border; or it may be enriched with a specially designed piece of ornament, as Fig. 60. This particular pattern should not, however, be enlarged to a height of more than twenty to twenty-four inches; but if of this width, and above a skirting of twelve or fifteen inches, it would look well.