HOUSES AND GARDENS 



lessly and lightly decided, will influence its final effect inside and outside far 

 more than any subsequent decorations, and the initial mistake made of a 

 badly proportioned room will consume the abilities of the decorator in 

 trying to palliate it with all kinds of divisions of the wall-space. 



The test of good proportion in a room, as in a house, is that the 

 structure can be left alone if desired, and while its wall-spaces may be sub- 

 divided horizontally for deco- 

 rative purposes, this is not \ 

 essential to palliate bad pro- 

 portions or to disguise the : ; 



defects of the original struc- \ 



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One of the most important 

 functions of the ceiling is to 

 act as a reflector for light, and 

 for this purpose it is generally 

 advisable that it should be 

 white. 



In cases where the joists 

 of the floor above are shown 

 in the ceiling, the most im- 

 portant consideration will be 

 the proper " deafening " of 



the floor. This may be done as shown in Fig. i , where two thicknesses of 

 boards are used for the floor, with a layer of felt between. It will be 

 noticed that the joists are here flatter in proportion than those generally used, 

 and they should also be somewhat wider apart than modern usage demands. 



The under side of the flooring-boards and the joists and beam may all be 

 left roughly finished from the saw, with the edges merely taken off them, and 

 then the whole may be whitewashed. In the spacing, as well as the actual 

 sizes of the joists, it is not desirable that mechanical accuracy should be 

 insisted on. They may be placed with such regularity in their distance apart 

 as the eye may be able to judge, and it would be well also if they slightly 

 varied in size, and all these slight variations in the size, direction, and spacing 

 of the timbers will give a vitality to the whole effect, and the eye will not be 

 repelled and chilled by that monotonous and cast-iron regularity which is the 

 ideal of modern work. It is the eye of the observer which is to be satisfied 

 with such work, and to the intelligent there will be no pleasure in an inhuman 

 precision which is obviously obtained by mechanical means. 



There are occasions and places in the building where an extreme 

 accuracy is necessary, but in this, as in many other cases, a certain variety 

 is essential. It is just such little points as these which make the difference 

 between the vital beauty of old buildings and the lifeless uniformity of 

 modern ones. 



Other and more elaborate ceilings may be divided into panels with 

 wooden ribs. In such cases there is an obvious departure from the floor 



63 



