March, 1912 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
37 
and storerooms if a few drops are put in 
the corners and upon the shelves. It is 
sure destruction to vermin and will effec¬ 
tually drive them away from their haunts 
if thoroughly applied to all the joints of 
the various articles of furniture. It in¬ 
jures neither clothing nor furniture. 
One tablespoonful added to a bucket of 
warm water is excellent for cleaning 
painted woodwork. 
Turpentine is also useful in laundry 
work in conjunction with ammonia to re¬ 
move paint stains from colored clothes. 
The two liquids are mixed and the stain 
dipped in and rubbed until it disappears. 
An Interesting Living Room 
I ONCE saw a pleasing combination of 
just the right things in the living- 
room of a collector of old Colonial furni¬ 
ture, which contained chairs, sofas and 
tables of different woods and styles, but 
the artistic taste of the owner has enabled 
him to evolve a living-room which em¬ 
bodies all of the restfulness and charm, 
which one expects to find in a room of this 
nature. After the dining-room, bedrooms 
and a small reception-room had claimed 
their share of the antique hunter's spoils, 
the collector found himself with only a 
few mahogany chairs, which did not 
match, an old sofa and a small mahogany 
tea-table, with which to furnish his good- 
sized living-room. Other furniture had 
to be purchased to fill in until such time as 
more old mahogany could be lured from 
some garret or cellar to be added to the 
other captives. So it was decided to buy 
some modern copies of the old reliable 
Windsor chair, stained a dark brown, an 
oblong table built on straight I\Iission 
lines, and some plain wicker chairs, as 
they could all be used later on to furnish 
the outdoor living-porch, when they had 
been crowded out of the living-room by 
their more worthy successors. So as to 
remove the whiteness of the willow and 
give it a softer tone, the Avicker chairs 
were treated to a coat of brown stain, 
which was partly rubbed off with a cloth, 
but enough allowed to remain to give the 
chairs a pleasing amount of light and 
shade. 
The long ^Mission table was placed al¬ 
most in the center of the room, directly in 
front of the fireplace. The arrangement 
of this table and the furniture was ideal, 
both for convenience and comfort, and 
could be followed to advantage in almost 
every living-room. The sofa was placed 
with its back against the long side of the 
table, so that the occupants faced the open 
fire, and one of the old mahogany chairs 
was placed at each end of the table, while 
one of the Windsor chairs stood on the 
other side. A brass student’s lamp stood 
in the middle of the table toward the sofa. 
A blotting-pad, paper-rack and other para¬ 
phernalia for correspondence, were placed 
at both ends of the table, while the maga¬ 
zines were piled near the lamp. In this 
way a number of people could be grouped 
around the table at one time, engaged in 
reading and writing, and at the same time 
they could all have the benefit of the 
shaded light and be near the open fire. 
So as to bring this heterogeneous col¬ 
lection of furniture into closer relation¬ 
ship, a tawny-yellow color scheme was 
adopted as a background, and this same 
color was carried through the over-cur- 
tains, rugs, lampshades and cushions for 
the wicker chairs, as the varying shapes 
and styles of the furniture would lend 
quite enough variety to the room. This 
color scheme was also carried out through 
the pictures, which consisted of brown 
prints framed in flat moldings of the same 
color, and on the mantel rested some old 
brass candlesticks whose polished surface 
was reflected in the brass trimmings of the 
old Franklin stove. 
It is always commendable to use a one- 
tone color scheme in any room where it is 
necessary to combine a number of dis¬ 
similar objects, for in this way you can tie 
the whole room together, so to speak, and 
the various outlines will blend into the 
background and not stand out so promi¬ 
nently as when two or more colors are 
combined. 
A Porch Sleeping Room 
SLEEPING apartment, designed by 
A. S. Barnes, of Los Angeles, Cal., 
that combines the advantages of the sleep¬ 
ing porch with the comforts of the indoor 
bedroom, is one of the attractive features 
of a recently completed house in Southern 
California. 
It is really a built-in porch, with win¬ 
dows that occupy all of two sides. The 
windows open on hinges, in the same way 
as the familiar French windows, and are 
so arranged that as much or as little air 
as may be desired can be admitted into the 
room. It can be merely well ventilated, or 
both sides can be thrown open, making it 
practically a piazza room. 
The walls are paneled in wood up to 
the height of the window sills, but the un¬ 
usual feature of the room is in the treat¬ 
ment of the ceiling and the frieze over the 
windows. From a factory where ordinary 
split baskets such as are in everyday use 
are made, large pieces of the woven or 
plaited material were obtained. These 
were put over the ceiling and extended 
down the walls to the top of the windows, 
then strips of wood were placed on at reg¬ 
ular intervals, giving a charming effect of 
panels. 
The plaited splits were neither expen¬ 
sive nor difficult to get, and being left in 
the natural color they contrasted in the 
most satisfactory way with the darker 
tone of the woodwork. Such a room is 
much too attractive to serve as a sleeping 
apartment only, and wide awnings that 
shade the open sides from the light and 
sun convert it into an equally attractive 
room for daytime use. 
A Kitchen Economy 
P ROTECTION for a white enameled 
sink can be obtained by purchasing 
a wooden mat, which is placed in the sink. 
These come made of hardwood in various 
sizes, one for a twenty-four-inch sink costs 
$1.50 retail: other sizes in proportion. 
If you have an enameled metal drain 
board, it is well to purchase a rubber mat 
for it. This costs but a small amount and 
will soon save its cost in preventing broken 
glass and china. 
There is an air of fitness in the furnishing of this sleeping porch. The ceiling and frieze are 
covered with woven basketing held on by battens 
