3i8 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



November, 1905 



Helps to Home Building 



Co lor 



OLOR is the vitalizing element in the de- 

 signing of the house. Its purpose is dis- 

 tinctly to beautify. Intended primarily as 

 an adornment, it is so essential to good archi- 

 tecture that it is quite indispensable. Its 

 utilitarian value is so great that even bad 

 houses well colored take on a new note of freshness and life, 

 and assume an air of good looks to which, structurally, they 

 are not in the least entitled. But color has a nobler value 

 than to cover up the defects of construction, and has a dis- 

 tinction and charm of its own, without which no house is 

 complete. 



The elemental purpose of color is to decorate; that is to 

 say, to give a more agreeable aspect to a structure than the 

 materials themselves may possess. Intended as a source of 

 beauty, it is axiomatic that it itself be beautiful. It must be 

 completely adapted to its environment, it must be well ap- 

 plied, and must be so applied that the material, the room and 

 building are all helped. 



That color has a distinctly structural value is apparent 

 from the fact that all materials have color, which is an in- 

 herent individual quality pertaining to each substance. This 

 color may be good or bad, pleasing or indifferent, positive or 

 neutral, but it exists; and even neutral tones assume positive 

 values when the mass is great enough. How important the 

 value of structural color is will be apparent on viewing a 

 row of houses of identical design but of materials of different 

 colors. It is true the lessons of contrast in such an example 

 are likely to be very pronounced and perhaps even unpleas- 

 ant; but this quality once divorced from consideration, it 

 will be easily possible for the mind to note how the various 

 colors affect the design, and how very different the design, 

 as a design, appears in the different shades. 



Structural color is, in fact, the foundation of all good 

 color design. It is a quality that impresses the mind before 

 the architectural details are grasped, although mass — out- 

 line, silhouette — is first comprehended. It is true the casual 

 observer may not take away from the outward examination 

 of a building any definite idea of its color, but he will re- 

 member that the color impressed him, impressed him more, 

 very likely, than the arrangement of the door and window 

 openings, of which he will not be able to give a more suc- 

 cinct account. 



Structural color, as an element of the design of a house, 

 is very much more considered to-day than a few years since. 

 In fact, houses and buildings of all sorts are so varied in 

 color that it may be questioned if we do not have too much of 

 it. Since color is an inherent quality of every building ma- 

 terial, it is obvious that color we must have, of some kind or 

 another. It is quite unavoidable, and the question becomes, 

 not what color shall we have, but how good shall our color 

 be? 



The excellence of color is the basis on which it must be 

 judged. It is true one can not avoid color in one's house, 

 but this is no reason for employing color promiscuously or 

 without regard to its own inherent excellence. Color must 

 be good or the building will be irretrievably ruined. If the 

 bricks are of unpleasant shade they should be rejected. If 

 the stone has an unwholesome aspect it must be cast to one 

 side. It is fundamental that the color be good in itself. 



The value of structural color is as notable within the 

 house as without it. Wood is the natural internal decora- 

 tive finish. Many large and splendid houses are now built 



with marble halls and stone vestibules; these are exceptional 

 residences for exceptional persons. But they are not above 

 the fundamental laws of good building — and as a matter of 

 fact many of these sumptuous dwellings are fine examples 

 of the best domestic work of the time — and the costly stone 

 is introduced partly because of the splendor of the material 

 and partly because of the color it gives. The average home 

 contains nothing of this, and most happily; for stone and 

 marble are thoroughly unsuited to interior work in north- 

 ern America, being essentially cold to the touch and cold in 

 effect. 



That we are learning more and more every day the value 

 of structural color is apparent from the great increase in 

 the use of natural woods. Most of us can recall the time 

 when every inch of internal woodwork was painted — not, it 

 is well to note, from love of paint, but because an inferior 

 wood was in general use which only lent itself to interior 

 effects when given an agreeable color by paint. To-day, 

 however, the natural wood is in higher favor, and very 

 beautiful much of it is, with deep, rich natural colors, fine 

 veinings, smooth even surfaces, to which the art of the wood 

 finisher gives a brilliancy which is the more welcome because 

 it is thoroughly natural. One has a wide range of choice 

 in choosing from these beautiful natural materials, each with 

 its own lovely color, so penetrating in its tones, even in the 

 most subdued of woods, as to be the foundation note of the 

 color scheme of the room, the indispensable tone, in fact, 

 with which everything else must harmonize. 



Painted color has many of the qualities of structural color, 

 although, having no structural properties of its own, it is 

 sometimes thought to be beyond the more rigid rules which 

 surround the use of structural color. Paint is so readily 

 applied, and is so comparatively cheap and so easily changed, 

 that it is sometimes viewed as scarcely more than a temporary 

 expedient, to be changed at will and employed with a quite 

 haphazard regard to effect. One can not, of course, enter- 

 tain the same regard for paint that one does for structure. 

 A painted wall does not command the respect that a wall of 

 stone or of finely finished brick invariably demands. But 

 the painted color will help the house quite as much as struc- 

 tural color, and it will hurt it, too, if it is not well chosen, 

 carefully selected, suitably harmonized. And this is as true 

 of paint within doors as of paint on the exterior. One can 

 not ignore the color problems of the house, whether the 

 color be structural or applied. The universal rule is, that 

 it be good. 



No feature of the house interior is more important than 

 the color. This is obtained from quite a variety of sources; 

 from the woodwork, from the walls, from the hangings, 

 from the floor coverings, from the furniture, from the orna- 

 ments. Everything inside the house has color, exactly as 

 every sort of material has color. The interior problem is 

 really much more complicated than the exterior, for the 

 inside of the house contains many rooms, each of which may 

 or may not have its own individual note of color, but each of 

 which must be harmonized one with the other, so that a view 

 through several rooms will show no discordant note, but 

 only beauty and harmony. 



In many respects the most serious problem that the home 

 maker has to solve is to obtain just this harmony and beauty, 

 without which his utmost efforts will be as naught. It is, 

 in short, the problem of the house, and it is the more difficult 

 because each interior calls for individual treatment. 



