January, 1grt 
Banjo clock 
Decorations and Furnishings for 
An original four-poster bed 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 13 
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An old time-piece 
the Home 
By Alice M. Kellogg 
XI.—Old-time Bed 
say OLLECTING antique furniture is a phase 
\X% of home making that touches the theore- 
tical more than the practical needs of life. 
One may be a discriminating critic of 
form and line, a competent judge of ma- 
terial, an expert on dates and periods of 
manufacture, but without the ability to 
create a harmonious setting for articles, priceless for their 
antiquity. 
In the historic mansions scattered throughout our 
country and maintained for patriotic societies as object 
lessons of Colonial life, we find in more or less perfection of 
detail the accurate 
surroundings for an- 
tique furniture of 
that period. 
The picture charm 
is convincing, and 
makes especial ap- 
peal to those who 
have been accustom- 
ed to the uninterest- 
ing furnishings of 
the nineteenth cen- 
time lo realize a 
similar ideal the hunt 
for old furniture is 
begun, with its rich 
yield of many-sided 
interests. 
Amateur  collec- 
tions of old furniture 
naturally tend _ to- 
wards the _ pieces 
originated for bed- 
rooms, bedsteads, 
chests of drawers, 
A stately room 
Room Furnishings 
mirrors, washstands, chairs and tables. With any or all of 
these in possession, complementary fittings are requisite and 
desirable to maintain their standard of interest. 
In the accompaning illustrations various conditions have 
been met more or less successfully. The Colonial feeling is 
apparent in all, although it is only completely attained in 
two of the examples. 
A careful analysis of the problem brings to its solu- 
tion the simple question of suiting the old-time fittings to 
modern requirements. For the home is not a museum of 
historic antiquities to be exhibited for educational benefit, 
nor a shop for the profitable disbursement of rare articles, 
but a place for com- 
fortable living, en- 
riched whenever pos- 
sible by whatever 
will contribute to its 
beauty and _ interest. 
The _ four-poster 
bed, with an upper 
valance of light- 
weight texture, 
placed in a room of 
good size with plenty 
of windows, is not at 
all unsanitary, even 
in our up-to-date con- 
ceptions of the word. 
Yet even this slight 
drapery miay bie 
modified, while 
taining its picturesque 
feature, by leaving 
off the canopy at the 
top. 
As the choice of 
material and manner 
iG- 
