HOUSE AND GARDEN 
July, 1911 
office buildings, 
now superseded 
by skyscrapers, 
changed into smart 
studios. And thus 
to the furnisher as 
well as to the archi¬ 
tect the problem of 
reconstruction is 
being constantly 
presented. And for 
the decorator it is 
a most difficult 
one, for he or she 
is usually expected 
to accomplish the 
task without much 
structural change. 
Let 11s agree to 
call the recon¬ 
structing decorator 
she, since it is most 
often a woman 
who struggles suc¬ 
cessfully with the 
difficult, yet stimu- 
1 a t i n g , task of 
achieving beauty from unlike¬ 
ly materials. And there is no 
occupation more interesting 
than the rehabilitation of an 
old house that has fallen from 
its original state of magnifi¬ 
cence or comfort. There is 
the thrill of adventure in seiz¬ 
ing upon something out of the 
past and fitting it to modern 
needs. When expense need 
not be too carefully considered 
and structural changes can be 
freely made, it is a simple 
matter and one usually put in 
the hands of an architect. But 
often this is not feasible, and 
the house designer is called 
in to see what he or she can 
accomplish by redecorating 
and furnishing alone. 
The house is likely to be¬ 
long to one of two types, each 
having the narrow hall and 
straight flight of stairs, com¬ 
mencing discouragingly near 
the front door. The more 
spacious of these houses will 
have rooms on either side and 
a narrow back hall at right 
angles to the front hall and 
opening on to a side porch, 
perhaps with service stairs 
leading from this second hall. 
The house may have the nar¬ 
row hall on one side and a 
transverse wing with its main 
room, which will be the din¬ 
ing or sitting room, opening 
directly on to the porch. 
The first thought 
in remodeling such 
a house is simpli¬ 
fication. Every self- 
respecting house of 
forty or fifty years 
ago had its parlor 
and sitting-room, 
the former an 
apartment of state, 
however small, and 
in many cases used 
only on occasions 
of ceremony. It be¬ 
came often a cham¬ 
ber of horrors, in 
which no one cared 
to sit, a place sug- 
g e s t i v e of wax 
wreaths and funer¬ 
als. The family 
used the sitting- 
room, or in small¬ 
er houses, the kitch¬ 
en, as its living- 
room and the par¬ 
lor was left in de¬ 
served abandonment. 
If the house were large, the 
parlor was not closed, but was 
still used sparingly, while the 
library on the other side of 
the hall became the living- 
room, and mother's bedroom 
or the dining-room became 
the romping ground of the 
children, the nursery being al¬ 
most an unknown quantity in 
the early American house. 
When such a house is given 
to the architect, he at once be¬ 
gins to knock down walls. 
Several small rooms are 
thrown into one, stairs are 
moved back, generous veran¬ 
das are added, and a spa¬ 
cious, convenient dwelling is 
achieved. 
It is often given, however, 
to the house decorator or the 
housewife herself to make 
habitable and beautiful, if 
possible, such a house without 
the expense involved in struc¬ 
tural changes. Can it be done, 
you may ask? 
That it can be, is proved 
by many pleasant homes and 
by the work here pictured of 
at least one woman decorator, 
Miss Edith V an Boskerck, 
who has had unusual success 
in remodeling and simplifying 
the over-ornamented houses 
of one or two decades ago. 
And the means by which 
she does this are few and 
An old house that was redeemed largely by the new staircase and 
the changing of dark, gloomy woodwork to the white by refin¬ 
ishing. It seems hard to paint walnut, but that is sometimes the 
only way out of the difficulty 
The low frieze was secured by tacking narrow white molding over the papered wall. The 
location of the posters over important pieces of furniture requires considerable study 
