Furnishing and Decorating the Nursery 
THE MODERN IDEA IN CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT FOR THE CHILD-WALL PAPER 
AND ARTICLES OF FURNITURE THAT BRING THE DELIGHT OF A NEW TOY 
by Sarah Leyburn Coe 
Photographs by the Author 
URNISHINGS for the modern 
child’s room, like everything else 
that belongs to that important person¬ 
age, are as complete in the smallest de¬ 
tail as skill and ingenuity can make 
them, and every feature of a well-ap¬ 
pointed bedroom may be duplicated in 
miniature for the youngsters. 
The wall-papers and draperies espe¬ 
cially designed for nurseries and chil¬ 
dren’s rooms are in a way more dis¬ 
tinctively juvenile than the actual 
pieces of furniture, and are a most im¬ 
portant consideration in fitting out such 
apartments. 1 f one does not care to go 
to the expense of furnishing a nursery 
completely, paper and curtains that will 
leave no doubt as to the identity of the 
room may be had at small cost, and 
from this simple touch the scheme of 
decorations and the furniture, to say 
nothing of the cost, may be indefinitely 
extended. 
Strictly hygienic parents who scout 
the idea of wall-paper as being un¬ 
healthy and will have nothing but 
painted walls in a bedroom are con¬ 
fronted by a bare expanse that may be sanitary, but is neither 
attractive nor interesting for the child. With walls treated in this 
way a decorative frieze may be used with good effect. The 
friezes, which come in panels varying in depth from fourteen to 
nineteen and one-half inches, are printed in gay colors on back¬ 
grounds of blue-gray, ivory-white, drab and other neutral tones 
that can be matched exactly in the color of the walls. The de¬ 
signs include processions of Noah’s 
ark inhabitants, farmyard animals, 
chickens and ducks, Normandy peasants 
going to market, toy villages with stiff 
little soldiers and prim-looking trees, 
hunting scenes, and a row of Dutch 
kiddies indulging in a mad race across 
the paper. 
If wall-paper is used it also matches 
the background of the frieze, the paper 
being either in a solid color or with a 
figure so inconspicuous that it gives 
the impression of a single tone. 
One of the new papers for children’s 
room is a reproduction of the quaint 
Kate Greenaway figures that are quite 
as fascinating to little people in these 
days as they were years ago. The 
background is a pale yellow and the 
figures are printed in rather delicate 
colors, each group representing one of 
the calendar months. The effect is 
particularly dainty and the designs are 
diverting for the children without be¬ 
coming tiresome from too great con¬ 
trast in color. Another paper that 
shows groups quite as charming is 
printed from designs by Boutet de Monvel, the famous French 
illustrator of child life. 
A new idea, and one that is proving popular, is a decided de¬ 
parture from the conventional wall-paper, with its figures at reg¬ 
ularly repeated intervals. This consists in first putting on the 
walls a paper of solid color to be used as a background for single 
figures or groups that are cut from friezes and pasted on to suit 
A wall paper printed from designs of Boutet de 
Monvel, a famous illustrator of child life, is 
particularly well adapted to the nursery 
These friezes and the ones at the top of the page are four of a number of similar designs covering a variety of subjects. 
colors on neutral backgrounds which may be exactly matched by the wall paper 
They are printed in gay 
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