30 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



January, 19 lO 



Figure 2 — Books do not rightfully belong in a hall and are only permissible 

 when limitations of space make them a necessity 



are unpretentious they are at least dignified. A carpenter 

 made and stained these for $12. The Dutch clock also 

 breaks the line. One can be had from $25 to $50, but 

 needs to be wound twice a day. Yet it is so companionable 

 and decorative, and the slight trouble involved in winding 

 is really a pastime. The small hat-rack cost 75 cents, and 

 because unobtrusive, is greatly to be preferred to those ugly 

 uprights having seats, hooks and bad mirrors. 



Yellow is the color of this hall, the hangings being of 

 green denham, easily washed and shaken. Yellow gives 

 light, suggests sunshine, and was chosen because the hall 

 was dark. It blends agreeably, too, with that of the ad- 

 joining rooms, where low-toned greens are prevailing. The 

 importance of considering the colors of adjoining rooms 

 has already been touched upon, but bears a slight repetition, 

 since it can be readily seen that no room opening out of this 

 hall could be done in a jarring tint. 



A green and white striped paper, like that running 

 through all the halls of the Colony Club, covers the second 

 hall, in Figure i, here shown, and gives at once the same 

 air of refreshing coolness already observed in the chintz 

 drawing-room on which it opens. One will notice, too, the 

 same reserve. Here all the books are grouped in shelves 

 around the steam radiator, and this brings me to another 

 uncomfortable problem — that of concealing these ugly af- 

 fairs. Even in new apartments renting for thousands the 

 same problem exists, and the astonishment grows that archi- 

 tects have done so little for the tenant. In small apart- 

 ments the tenant must do for himself, but there is no ex- 

 cuse where the larger ones are concerned, and where heat 

 may be introduced around the baseboard. As can be seen 

 in the illustration, the shelves about the radiator conceal it. 

 The upright lamp, too, helps to make a composition and, 

 as it is lighted by electricity, the presence of the lamp is not 

 objectionable. 



Very much the same plan has been followed in the other 



halls, except that in one instance a mirror is hung over the 

 shelf, which is set out with brass. The mirrors' reflections 

 beguile the eye, carrying it away from the heater. The 

 brass candlesticks, too, have their proper place there, since 

 on dark afternoons they are lighted. When the dining- 

 room is crowded the serving-table is placed in front of 

 the radiator, an arrangement so frank that no shock ensues. 

 It may be as well, perhaps, just here, to give two or 

 three other suggestions for the treatment of the radiator. 

 When, as it often does, it comes in front of a window, a 

 box seat may be built over it, furnished with cushions, which 

 at least are comfortable in summer. Or the seat may be 

 left uncovered, and set out with plants requiring much heat, 

 the massing of the greens against the light being most ef- 

 fective in some apartments. A more expensive device is 

 that of a regularly fitted brass cover with latticed sides and 

 top permitting the heat to escape, and finished with a well- 

 designed border. This, though not concealing the heating 

 apparatus, gives it a certain dignity, although nothing quite 

 excuses the whole system of upright radiators. Still an- 

 other way is that adopted in the Colony Club. There a 

 French dining-room would have been utterly ruined had 

 the radiator been left to proclaim itself. The problem was 

 solved in this way. The heater was covered with what 

 looks like a cupboard with doors, the panels being made of 

 wire screening painted gray-white like the wood. Be- 

 hind the screening hangs thin pink silk curtains to match 

 the room. This is an inexpensive arrangement which any 

 clever man about the house, with a gift for designing, can 

 do for himself. Instead of the wire screening, he could 

 buy caning, like that used on chairs, and paint it. That 

 which makes the special treatment just quoted, however, so 

 clever, is the fact that the decorator balanced the pretended 

 cupboard with a real one of like design, placed under the 

 corresponding window, filling it with china. One is cau- 

 tioned not to imitate this French design without studying 



Figure 3 — The doors of the dining-room are open with the two rear 

 windows facing them 



