62 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
CRANE 
RADIATOR VALVES 
make comfort in the home 
The care with which you select the materials that go into your new 
house is the protection that you have against a long column of figures 
on the upkeep side of your ledger—and upkeep means dead loss. 
The most expensive part of your house to keep in repair is the walls 
—inside and out—they must be built right to stay right and walls of 
permanence are laid over a base of 
Expanded Metal Lath 
Kno-Burn Expanded Metal Lath is made with a strong mesh that 
embeds itself in the plaster and grips unfailingly and forever. It 
produces a wall surface of perfect smoothness—no ribs or hummocks 
—no cracks that disfigure and that cannot be repaired. You can paper 
over a Kno-Burn lathed wall as soon as the plaster is dry. 
“Practical Homebuilding” tells just why Kno-Burn Expanded Metal 
Lath is the most economical material you can use. 
Send ten cents to cover cost of mailing and ask for 
Booklet 379 jgf§i§||f||| 
North Western Expanded Metal Company 
Manufacturers of all types of A 
Expanded Metal ^ 
937 Old Colony Building, Chicago, Illinois 
The Decoration of the Morning Room 
(Continued from page 60) 
regular complement of bric-a-brac 
for the morning room be reduced to 
the lowest terms. There will inevi¬ 
tably be many things brought in and 
set down, and, if there are numerous 
pieces of legitimate bric-a-brac there 
already, the place will always look 
crowded and fussy. Better allow 
plenty of space for the fortuitous 
and ephemeral decorations and keep 
regular ornaments discreetly few but 
good of their kind. 
Suggested Color Schemes 
The sunny exposure of the morn¬ 
ing room will naturally suggest a 
cool color for the walls and wood¬ 
work. Of course, if the room is 
paneled in wood with its natural 
finish, such as oak, chestnut, butter¬ 
nut or hickory, the result will be 
agreeable because the abundance of 
light will balance the dark tone of 
the wood. Otherwise it will be bet¬ 
ter to have the walls of a pleasant 
neutral tone such, for instance, as 
putty color or gray. Whatever ar¬ 
rangement of color and finish be 
adopted, let it be done with the 
thought constantly in mind that it 
must make a suitable background for 
a thoroughly human room that is to 
be lived in by every member of the 
family, a room that is to display 
in every particular intimate spirit. 
For the convenience of readers who 
would decorate a morning room the 
following schemes are suggested. 
Their use, of course, will depend on 
the location of the room, its size, 
built-in furniture, etc. Also, a point 
in one may be introduced into an¬ 
other room; this being subject to the 
wishes of the owner: 
For a small Colonial room: ivory 
woodwork, or white “antiqued”; 
cream walls, either painted or 
papered; hangings of a vari-colored 
chintz in which a warm brown or 
tan is predominant; rug of two-toned 
tan which repeats the tan in the 
hangings; mahogany furniture with 
one or two pieces of willow up¬ 
holstered in a gay chintz; simple 
lighting fixtures of Colonial brass, 
dull finished or silver finished; on 
the mantel or somewhere about the 
room one or two pieces of pewter 
or some genuine Colonial antique 
such as a sampler. 
For a small Italian room: rough 
cast walls with plaster cast inserts 
over the fireplace ; painted furniture ; 
an animal rug before the hearth ; blue 
rugs in other spots; hangings in 
which blue predominates; wrought 
iron fixtures and fireplace equipment; 
flower boxes on the window sills. 
For a small room in a country 
house: painted and willow furniture, 
the latter giving color note for hang¬ 
ings which should be cheery; blue 
and gold Chinese fibre rugs; gold- 
colored sunfast curtains; tinted 
woodwork ; painted fixtures ; neutral 
walls; pottery bowls containing 
flowers or dried grasses. The general 
spirit should be simple and intimate. 
The Role of White Paint in the Room of Effects 
(Continued from page 33) 
ceiling 9'4j/2" high. One whole side 
wall is plain and unbroken in its 
length of 10'10" and against it must 
stand the bed. This gives a cosy 
32" space before reaching the ward¬ 
robe, which, with the door into the 
hall, occupies all of the adjoining 
side. Close beside the hall door, 
in the wall opposite the bed, is an¬ 
other door leading directly into the 
next room. 
This wall gives space for the 
writing table and the chiffonier, 
and in the corner a round table. 
The one window is placed in a really 
good position in the remaining wall 
giving room for the bed’s width and 
a screen on the side farthest away 
from the table 
Of necessity, it had to be an effi¬ 
cient room, everything had its place 
and must remain there or chaos 
would inevitably result. 
The white treatment makes the 
room seem larger and lighter and—*— 
but to return to the floor. Matting 
had been tried, carpets discarded— 
too dusty, too smothery. Matting 
was not so bad, only the dust pene¬ 
trates its open weave and when, at 
stated periods it was lifted and 
sifted, so to speak, one was shocked 
at the uncleanliness underneath. Paint 
was therefore the desirable thing— 
at least experimentally. The painter 
compromised by an undercoat of 
sickly, muddy tan which had to be 
overcome by several coats of shining 
and immaculate white. 
Accentuating the Ugly 
Then came the cracks between the 
boards—not very amusing ever. 
W ho was the pianist who was wrnnt, 
when improvising, if he struck a 
false note, to look his audience 
squarely in the eyes and then play 
that note again and again, one octave 
after another, up and down the key¬ 
board, then form it into a minor 
chord and repeat that till he felt 
that the audience were convinced 
that he had intended to play that 
particular note from the first? Was 
it Chopin? Or another? 
So here cracks in the floor are 
objectionable—well and good. Ac¬ 
cent them, make them stand out 
On the wall, around the top of the 
room runs a formal pochoir border 
of black in circles and lines. Down 
beside the chiffonier it runs, fram¬ 
ing the little space occupied by that 
piece, and down beside the bookcase 
with its oval mirror above, the stiff 
little frame-work runs again. 
No picture is on the wall, saving 
one silhouette design of two merry 
little figures playing at tether-ball. 
This is painted on the paper over 
the chiffonier, in black. 
So the obvious color for the 
cracks of the floor is black; and with 
the wall’s own border running 
around the floor, marking en route, 
the ^ spaces for the bed," bookcase, 
chiffonier, and making a boundary 
quite around the room, the floor has 
become unique, amusing, cleanly, 
and it adds noticeably to the light of 
the room. Coats and coats of shel¬ 
lac have rendered it smooth and 
hard and durable. 
The Bed in Disguise 
“But I like to move my furniture 
about and never have it in the same 
place long at a time,” objected one. 
In this room, as in many tiny 
rooms, that is impossible. It is so 
constructed that, year in and year 
out, there is but one available place 
for the big pieces. 
As is usual in apartments, the 
room stands boldly and blandly at 
the entrance door. This would 
rather preclude the possibility of 
making jt an ordinary bedroom. 
Besides, it is used as a study and 
sometimes a sitting-room. Now, the 
foot of a bed staring at you and 
flaunting its bars in your face as you 
enter or pass it, is not pleasing. 
(Continued on page 64) 
