206 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
October, 1912 
suburban and village houses where dark colored shades lowered 
at an arbitrary line give as gloomy an effect to the street as 
would flags at half mast. Working in the half light caused by 
this fetich of housewives cannot fail to prove difficult and irri¬ 
tating even to those inured to the custom. From an esthetic 
viewpoint a floor better lighted than a ceiling or side walls, a 
woman's skirt receiving more light than her head or arms, are 
unbeautiful, topsy-turvy effects often noticed in the ill lighted 
room, never in the artist’s studio or in the house planned with 
care in every detail of lighting and furnishing. The recent in¬ 
quiry of an anxious home-builder as to whether window shades 
were no longer “worn'’ is a sad commentary on the status of 
window treatment, still often classed with millinery and dress¬ 
making, and controlled by fashion rather than by esthetic 
effect. 
Though the window shade may often follow an inartistic con¬ 
vention, curtains present a cheerful contrast with those of even 
a decade ago. Curtain material throughout a whole house, or 
on each floor, is often the same. For to furnish different rooms 
each in a different period style is a custom infrequently fol¬ 
lowed. The Empire parlor, the Jacobean library, the Oriental 
den, and the American Indian dining-room form a pot pourri 
too highly flavored for the restricted space of the small house. 
Simple Colonial styles are usually adopted throughout, or the 
modern English or American method of building and furnish¬ 
ing as simply as possible unencumbered by tradition is used. 
Curtains naturally share this uniformity of treatment. If the 
house is Colonial, chintzes reproducing the patterns of a hun¬ 
dred years ago are now available, sometimes reprinted from the 
old blocks. The old “copperplate’’ once brought from the Ori¬ 
ent, with its glazed surface and quaint flowery designs, is not 
reproduced, but motives borrowed from the Chinese in Chip¬ 
pendale’s time are again appearing upon attractive fabrics, and 
are as appropriate with our Colonial furniture as with the Eng¬ 
lish. One of our pictures shows a dining-room window cur¬ 
tained with one of these new-old chintzes, used throughout this 
modern Colonial house. In one house, small and of Colonial cot¬ 
tage type, are bedroom curtains of chintz, used with inner cur¬ 
tains of cheesecloth. They are looped back with bands of the ma¬ 
terial. An old mahogany rocker was done over in the same 
flowery chintz, echo¬ 
ing the rose and 
green, though the 
bewildering c o m - 
plexity of pattern of 
the room w here 
nearly every surface 
is covered with 
chintz is avoided. 
If plain material 
is desired. Chinese 
or Japanese silks are 
suitable for the Co¬ 
lo n i a 1 house. A 
smooth silk in light 
gray, to be found in 
Chinatown shops, is 
durable and attrac¬ 
tive, washing well. 
The silks called Dur¬ 
bar and Iv y b e r, 
among others, re¬ 
semble the raw silks 
of Japan and India, 
but are smoother, 
not catching the 
dust. Scrim, hem- 
The new-old chintzes are well used in the 
dining-room of white trim. The same pat¬ 
tern is used throughout this house 
Curtains of simple net with a small valance serve to good advantage in 
the living-room of almost any furnishing 
stitched, is used for any style of small house, and white muslin is. 
always charming. 
For the small house that is distinctly modern, with, perhaps,, 
built-in and movable furniture of Mission style, there are many 
appropriate curtain fabrics. One of the most pleasing is linen. 
There are the English linens, with an oyster white or gray green, 
or blue ground printed in all-over designs of artistic value, suit¬ 
able for portieres and couch covers as well as for outer window 
draperies. There are plain linens from England in white and 
yellowish tones. There is a roughly woven, primitive looking, 
Canadian linen, with simple border design, procurable at some 
decorators’ shops. There is Russia crash, cheapest and most 
adaptable of linens, which can be made into top and side borders 
for windows in single width and is often stenciled in one or two- 
colors in simple patterns. Glass toweling with its red and white 
or blue and white squares is sometimes used for kitchen window 
curtains. 
In cotton there is unbleached muslin which makes astonishingly 
effective curtains at small cost, especially if stenciled in an all- 
over repeat pattern in a flower or sprig motive. For sleeping 
rooms in the country cottage, cheesecloth stenciled in this way 
makes pretty curtains, and dotted or barred muslin stenciled or 
plain is invariably fresh and inviting. Madras is often seen, the 
Scotch being least likely to fade. A material called Cruggleton, 
resembling challis, comes from England, and is especially appro¬ 
priate for rooms furnished in Mission style. It has a white or 
pale colored ground, with quaint woven designs in tones of pale 
green, rose and lavender, colors that do not fade with washing.. 
Chinese or Japanese silks are as suitable for the house of purely 
modern style as for the Colonial. Sometimes two curtains of 
thin Japanese silk are used one over the other. Of blending or- 
