HOUSE AND GARDEN CORRESPONDENCE 
FURNISHING AN ENTRANCE HALL 
I wish to furnish an entrance hall of an American 
basement house. The front door is all of glass covered 
by an iron grill; I have a very beautiful T abriz rug 
which covers all but a two-foot margin of the floor. 
The woodwork is of oak and of a very crude, disagree¬ 
able color and finish at present; it is what is known 
as golden oak. I desire very much to have this dark 
and of flat finish. Kindly advise me how to secure 
this effect. I would like it to be about the shade of 
real old English oak. I wish to purchase two good 
pieces for this hall, a seat, couch, divan or davenport, 
and a large table. Will you give me some suggestions 
for these? What shall I do with the walls ? there is 
no wainscot. E. G. 
You can remove the varnish and stain from your oak 
by using supreme varnish remover. This should be 
applied with a stiff wire brush. By this treatment you 
can reach the bare wood and treat it as such. English 
oak w’ood tint is an excellent nut hrown shade, and one 
coat of this should he applied, followed by one of No. 
20 surfacer, and one of dead lac. No filler is used, 
and a beautiful dull finish is obtained. Cover your 
walls with Japanese grass cloth in a shade between 
brown and goldenrod yellow. This is most attractive 
in combination with the English oak wood stain, and 
will also harmonize well with your Tabriz rug. On 
one side of the hall, hang a tapestry, something with 
dull smoke blue background and figures would be effec¬ 
tive. I would advise a Gadshill table and sofa for use here; the 
table should be placed well in the centre of the hall. The sofa 
should be covered with dull, rich blue cut velour matching 
in tone the blue of your rug. These pieces come in oak and 
in mahogany. In mahogany, the price of the table is $95.00, 
the sofa $6q.oo. Margaret Greenleaf. 
SEWAGE DISPOSAL IN THE COUNTRY 
In reply to E. J. C. and M. F. we would say that the first of 
two papers on the disposal of wastes from country houses will 
probably appear in House and Garden for April and the sec¬ 
ond paper in the following issue. Meanwhile we can only re¬ 
iterate that the installation of the Waring system in any of its 
more recent modifications should be 
done only under expert advice to en¬ 
sure success. 
A GADSHILL TABLE 
READY MIXED PAINTS 
A correspondent writes that some 
injustice may have been done to the 
several excellent brands of ready- 
to-use paints in the market by our 
reply to N. D. H. in the January 
issue of House and Garden. We 
might have added to what was then 
said, in order to clear up the point 
raised, that when a brand of paint 
has maintained its place in the market 
for ten or a dozen years, it has done 
so only because time has proven its 
permanent good qualities. New 
brands of inferior quality may find 
a market for a limited time but 
when all new territory has been ex¬ 
ploited they drop out of sight and 
are heard of no more. 
I here is also an additional advant¬ 
age that may be credited to the ready 
mixed paints of the best quality, viz:- 
that the incorporation of the materials 
is more thorough than is possiblewhen 
the ingredients are mixed by hand. 
