In the niches or corners between your rooms put large Spanish or Moorish jars, which come in a very inexpensive pottery vivid in color; and one can always get a bough of green to put in them.
Of course there are many types of bungalows, from the very simple ones with pine sheathed varnished walls to the permanent type with plastered and tinted walls, which permit of a more elaborate and permanent kind of furnishings.
For the primitive bungalow, grass rugs or those made of fiber, of which there are many charming and very smart ones to choose from, are very effective, if your furnishings are very simple and you haven’t much color about. But in the permanent type of house almost any kind of carpet rug, Oriental or Chinese rug can be used.
Have only lamps in your living room, lots of them; no side lights, though these in simple appropriate design are most attractive and necessary in the dining room, as you have no overhead light and no other light except your table candles. Painted furniture is most charming in a bungalow dining room, or you can use painted chairs and a mahogany table. The color in your rooms should be determined by the exposure of your house.
Personally I like paper in country bedrooms. There are so many very pretty papers that are reproductions of fine old chintz designs, that give a deliciously crisp fresh look, and it is so easy to take one of the colors in the paper as your color scheme for the room. Paint up a lot of old furniture if you have it; body color it some tone in your paper and put lines of another color; or if you can paint, take some motive in your paper or chintz and reproduce it on your furniture. Don’t be in a hurry to do it all at once. It will grow—one thing will suggest another and it becomes a perfectly fascinating sort of game.
If your wall has a flowered paper, it is well to use some plain material for curtains—or something with very inconspicuous pattern. If your windows are very small and your house is where no one can see in, have your sash window curtains pushed well back to give you all the beauty of your view. Let in all the sunshine and air you possibly can.
For country bedrooms nothing is prettier than dotted swiss—or organdie or ordinary book muslin, made with little ruffles on the inside. They dress up a room at once; and remember this—that if your windows are properly handled, your curtains well chosen and well made, your room is half—more than half—done, for immediately on entering a room our gaze goes toward the window. Really enchanting curtains can be made of ginghams and voiles and many materials that one sees in the day’s shopping. For bedrooms a valance of chintz over the muslin window curtain will give up color—if we don’t want chintz curtains at the sides of our window.
Be very careful that you get the right shade of your color. There are blues that are warm and blues that are very cold. Pink can be one of the hardest tones I know, if it is in a room with the wrong exposure. Some yellows are sunny, others very dull. You have to try them in your rooms—each with its own angle of exposure and light and reflection.
In your verandah furnishings you have room for no end of color. You can let yourself go to your heart’s content—not freakish color but good strong ringing tones. The out of doors absorbs them in such a way that they are never garish or hard. Avoid heavy stuffy coverings and portieres, avoid “schemes” of decoration. Plan for comfort, for a suitable background that expresses the life of the family living within the walls of your house. Keep your floors low in tone—a well finished floor has much to do as a background with all the furniture we place upon it. See that it is well stained and polished and your wall tones soft and neutral. Be sincere—don’t do things for effect, but let your home express your life and in return it will give you joy and comfort.