The House and Its Furnishings 
SUGGESTIONS FOR COLONIAL HALL.^ 
practicable, a sash-curtain of raw silk may be 
used. The transom over the door should be simi¬ 
larly treated. Venetian slat-shades are charming 
and quite suitable in such a hall and heavy over¬ 
curtains made of old-fashioned rep silk or damask 
could be used. An inexpensive substitute for tins 
more expensive material may be had in cotton fabrics 
in excellent color, in prices ranging from fifty cents to 
a dollar and a half. A hfty inch cotton rep comes at 
hfty cents a yard,—an Egyptian cloth at one dollar. 
Various weaves of practically the same material 
appear each year in the market under diff erent names, 
any of which would be effective for curtains in such 
a hall. 
The modernized Colonial hall shown is another 
instance where furnishings do violence to an other¬ 
wise pleasing effect. Architecturally, this hall is 
good, with the exception of the treatment of the ceil¬ 
ing and selection of the lighting hxtures, but in the 
furnishings, the girandole, and that alone, is correct. 
The Empire period so distinctly implies elegance 
that an attempt to produce it on an inexpensive scale 
and to use it in a Colonial hall necessarily makes 
for bad results. 
The genuine Empire furniture when used in a room 
architecturally suitable, is, of course, charming. 
No good reproductions of this type of furniture are 
to be found in this country, — there apparently 
being no worthy followers of Percier and Eontaine, 
who designed this furniture in such perfection in the 
latter part of the eighteenth century. This method of 
enlivening massive pieces by an inlay of metal on 
ebony or dyed w ood, seems particularly adapted to the 
nature of the mahogany 
furniture so much in use 
at that time. 1 he great- 
est degree of nicety was 
shown in the mechanical 
process, — the metal orna¬ 
ment and the ground of 
stained wood in which it is 
inserted, being stamped 
and cut out together. But 
even when in itself perfect 
this type of furniture is 
hardly suitable to a modern 
These mistakes can be avoided only by a close study 
of form and an intelligent comparison of the offer¬ 
ings of the market. In these days of multitudinous 
newspapers and magazines there is no reason why 
one living, even at a distance from the centers, 
should not be informed of the possibilities which the 
market affords. 
Keep the entrance hall to your house as dignified 
as is consistent with the use which it must have. No 
impression on the mind of an outsider is more lasting 
than that made by the first glimpse of an entrance to 
a house. There is an elegance to a hall used simply 
as a passage to other apartments which can never be 
given to one used as a semi-living-room. 
Treating the windows of a hall like this is most 
difficult. The window cut off' by the stairway is 
awkward and unsightly. When possible, such a 
window should be eliminated entirely. If it must be 
dealt with, a plain 
grill of the prevail¬ 
ing woodwork, set 
flush with the win¬ 
dow casing, is an 
effective treat- 
ment, or an entire 
change of the win¬ 
dow sash may be 
made, using small 
wood m u n t i n s 
and small panes 
of glass. When 
neither of these 
alternatives is 
SUGGESTIONS FOR A COTTAGE 
