The living room may carry out the panel and plaster effect, but is more likely to demand a simple paper of good quality with no border. Here, as in the hall, the wooden (or plastic) cornice with no frieze is suggested. Grilles are discarded, and portières are avoided where possible.
THE BEAMED CEILING
In the dining room the beamed ceiling has been found so appropriate that it continues popular. It is simple, easily maintained, and has the broad, deep lines that put one at ease. Here it is advisable to carry a wooden wainscoting up to about 3 1/2 feet, the panels continuing to the ceiling. Tapestry, burlap, or plaster may show above. Plate shelves are somewhat in disfavor, partly because of abuse and partly because the tendency is to eliminate all dust-catchers that are not necessities. Where doors and windows are built on a line (as they should be), shelves are sometimes placed over them. But there should not be too many broken lines if we would preserve the comfortable suggestion of the beamed ceiling.
PAINT, PAPER, AND CALCIMINE
For the kitchen, painted walls, which can be easily wiped off, and resist steam, are preferable to calcimine. Tiling halfway up will be found still better, but tiling paper, which costs more than painting, is scarcely to be chosen. For the bedrooms the professional decorators are disposed to over elaboration. A simple paper, costing 15 to 35 cents per roll, is best, or even plain calcimine, which many persons consider more healthful. The latter costs only $3 or $4 a room and may be renewed every year or two. Very nice effects are had in a Georgia-pine panel trimming running to a wood cornice, and in natural wood or painted white. With this the ceiling should be plain white, and if bright-flowered paper is used, pictures should be discarded. Lively colors, if not too glaring, give a cheerful aspect to the room, but the safer plan is to stick to simplicity.
In the children's room a three-foot wood wainscoting is desirable. Part of this may be a blackboard without costing more, and at the top a shelf can be placed for toys. Figured nursery papers cost, per roll, from 35 to 75 cents, and will be a never-ceasing source of delight. If the walls are not papered they should be painted, for reasons that need not be suggested. Isn't it wonderful how far a three-foot boy or girl can reach?
SHADES AND CURTAINS
We have not advanced much in the production of window shades that will let in light and air, shut out the gaze of strangers, hold no shadows, match interior and exterior, fit properly, work with ease, cost little, and last forever. The ordinary opaque roller shade still has no serious rival, and usually the best we can do is to see to it that we get a good quality which is not always reliable, rather than a poor quality, which never is.
The good old lace curtains that were the pride of the housekeeper's heart and the jest of the masculine members of the household seem to have had their day. It has been a long one, and any article that holds sway for so lengthy a period must have had some merit. But the soft chintz, linen, madras, or muslin is now the vogue, and there is much good sense in the innovation. No lace curtain ever made could be both artistic and serviceable; some persons go so far as to say that they never were either, but we have too much reverence for tradition to be so iconoclastic. However, they certainly were expensive if they were good enough to have, were difficult to wash, and usually caused a dead line to be drawn about the very choicest part of the room. Linen curtains, costing from 50 cents to $1.25 a yard, may be had in a set or conventional design or plain appliqué. Chintz and muslin cost less, and some remarkably pretty effects in madras are obtainable. Curtains now sensibly stop at the bottom of the window instead of dragging upon the floor.
Besides shades and curtains the window question involves not only light, ventilation, and artistic relations, but such details as screens and storm windows. These latter matters come under the jurisdiction of the architect and should not be carelessly settled upon. Each room has its uses, to which the window must conform as nearly as may be, and then the outward appearance of the house must not be forgotten. It is often made or marred by the character and placing of the windows.