Furnishing the Home of Good Taste / A Brief Sketch of the Period Styles in Interior Decoration with Suggestions as to Their Employment in the Homes of Today

by Lucy Abbot Throop

Proportion is another word for the fitness of things, and that little phrase, "the fitness of things," is what Alice in Wonderland calls a "portmanteau" phrase, for it holds so much, and one must feel it strongly to escape the pitfalls of period furnishing. Most amazing things are done with perfect complacency, but although the French and English kings who gave their names to the various periods were far from models of virtue, they certainly deserved no such cruel punishment as to have some of the modern rooms, such as we have all seen, called after them.

The best decorators refuse to mix styles in one room and they thus save people from many mistakes, but a decorator without a thorough understanding of the subject, often leads one to disaster. A case in point is an apartment where a small Louis XV room opens on a narrow hall of nondescript modern style, with a wide archway opening into a Mission dining-room. As one sits in the midst of pink brocade and gilding and looks across to the dining-room, fitted out in all the heavy paraphernalia of Mission furniture, one's head fairly reels. No contrast could be more marked or more unsuitable, and yet this is by no means an uncommon case.

If one intends to adopt a style in decorating one's house, there should be a uniformity of treatment in all connecting rooms, and there must be harmony in the furniture and architecture and ornament, as well as harmony in the color scheme. The foundation must be right before the decoration is added. The proportion of doors and windows, for instance, is very important, with the decorated over-door reaching to the ceiling. The over-doors and mantels were architectural features of the rooms, and it was not until wallpapers came into common use, in the early part of the nineteenth century, that these decorative features slowly died out.

The mantel and fireplace should be a center of interest and should be balanced with something of importance on the other side of the room, either architectural or decorative. It was this regard for symmetry, balance, proportion, and harmony, which made the old rooms so satisfying; there was no magic about it, it was artistic common sense.

The use for which a room is intended must be kept in view and carried out with real understanding of its needs. The individuality of the owner is of course a factor. Unfortunately the word individuality is often confounded with eccentricity and to many people it means putting perfectly worthy and unassuming articles to startling uses. By individuality one should really mean the best expression of one's sense of beauty and the fitness of things, and when it is guided by the laws of harmony and proportion the result is usually one of great charm, convenience, and comfort. These qualities must be in every successful house.

In furnishing any house, whether in some special period or not, there are certain things which must be taken into account. One of these is the general color scheme. Arranging a color scheme for a house is not such a difficult matter as many people suppose, nor is it the simple thing that many others seem to think. There is a happy land between the two extremes, and the guide posts pointing to it are a good color sense, a true feeling for the proportion and harmony of color, and an understanding of the laws of light. The trouble is that people often do not use their eyes; red is red to them, blue is blue, and green is green. They have never appeared to notice that there are dozens of tones in these colors. Nature is one of the greatest teachers of color harmony if we would but learn from her. Look at a salt marsh on an autumn day and notice the wonderful browns and yellows and golds in it, the reds and russets and touches of green in the woods on its edge, and the clear blue sky over all with the reflections in the little pools. It is a picture of such splendor of color that one fairly gasps. Then look at the same marsh under gray skies and see the change; there is just as much beauty as before, the same russets and golds and reds, but exquisitely softened. One is sparkling, gay, a harmony of brilliancy; the other is more gentle, sweet and appealing, a harmony of softened glory.

Again, Nature makes a thousand and one shades of green leaves to harmonize with her flowers; the yellow green of the golden rod, the silver green of the milkweed, the bright green of the nasturtium. Notice the woods in wintertime with the wonderful purple browns and grays of the tree trunks and branches, the bronze and russet of the dead leaves, and the deep shadows in the snow. Everywhere one turns there are lessons to learn if one will only use seeing eyes and a thinking mind.

A house should be looked at as a whole, not as so many units to be treated in a care-free manner. A room is affected by all the rooms opening from it, as they, in turn, are affected by it. There can be variety of color with harmony of contrast, or there can be the same color used throughout, with the variety gained by the use of its different tones. The plan of each floor should be carefully studied to get the vistas in all directions so that harmony may reign and there will be no danger of a clashing color discord when a door is opened. The connecting rooms need not be all in one color, of course, but they should form a perfect color harmony one with another, with deft touches of contrast to accent and bring out the beauty of the whole scheme: This matter of harmony in contrast is an important one. The idea of using a predominant color is a restful one, and adds dignity and apparent size to a house. The walls, for instance, could be paneled in white enameled wood, or plaster, and the necessary color and variety could be supplied by the rugs, hangings, furniture, and pictures.

Another charming plan is to have different tones of one color used—a scheme running from cream or old ivory through soft yellow and tan to a russet brown would be lovely, especially if the house did not have an over supply of light. Greens may be used with discretion, and a cool and attractive scheme is from white to soft blue through gray. If different colors are to be used in the different rooms the number of combinations is almost unlimited, but there must always be the restraining influence of a good color sense in forming the scheme or the result will be disappointing, to say the least.