A MONG the axioms engraven indelibly on the mind of many a®* 
householder is the fact that experiments are generally inad-|j 
visable if the results must be permanent. Especially is this true if' 
the experiment is to gratify a whim. There are instances, how- 
aver, where that assertion is refuted, and for such an instance 
one has but to turn to the pictures of “Iristhorpe” on another 
page of this issue of House and Garden. Here baldly are the 
facts of the experiment — an old house was taken and remodeled. 
The owner's favorite dower was the iris, and, appreciative of its 
variations in color and tone, she started with it as the keynote 
for her decorative scheme. She believed the iris to be the one 
flower that would lend itself to such elastic usages and universal 
application, its shape assuring unity, its variations preventing 
monotony. As can be readily seen, the results were a success. 
Few flowers would permit such use, roses and violets perhaps, 
though even these do not afford the conventional lines found in 
the iris. But although “Iristhorpe" was a brilliant achievement, 
there arises, apropos of it, a question that perplexes amateur 
decorators and even professionals: Can a room be “built up” 
from a single object? Can one decorate a room around — a pair 
of vases, a chair, a rug? 
The bare statement that this can be done might very simply be 
filed away among the effete absurdities of an esthetic fad, were 
it not for the fact that the experiment is constantly being tried. 
There was, for example, the man in Stockton’s story. He bought 
unto himself a fire screen, but when he put it in his room he dis¬ 
covered that it threw the room out of proportion, and he was 
obliged to change the room. And having changed the room, he 
found that it threw the rest of the house out of proportion, so he 
had to set to and change the house. However amusing the story, 
it is not without its modicum of hard common sense. In ordinary 
experience, one o ftwo things will happen if the room be “built 
up from a single object: either the room will remain common¬ 
place by reason of the mediocrity of the object, or else the basic- 
object will be completely overshadowed in the too exaggerated 
development of the room. And imagine the catastrophe if the 
vases then were broken or the chair smashed! Moreover, there 
might be a dozen different ways to develop the decoration of a 
room from the solitary lovely thing, just as a dozen different har¬ 
monies can be arranged for middle C. The problem would arise, 
what is the right sort of room ? One might have — to quote a 
plausible example — a pair of beautiful Nanking ginger jars. 
Chinese Chippendale would be the immediate choice for the style 
of decoration. But forthwith would arise the problem, what 
variety of Chinese Chippendale, what one of the various lacquers 
and stains? More than once have amateurs — and even profes¬ 
sional — decorators discovered the results of their experiment to 
be the wrong sort of room! Hinc illce lacrymce! 
Decorating a room to one's ultimate gratification and the satis¬ 
faction of artistic demands can only be accomplished after exer¬ 
cising infinite patience and untiring selection. And there are 
some rules that, put in homely phrase, might well be remem¬ 
bered. The personality of a room should be the personality of 
the person who dwells in it, for a room is more than chairs and 
rugs and curtains and tables. Those objects should be the choice 
of the person who has to live in the room. In passing from room 
to room in a house one should be able to sense not merely a 
change in periods but a change in personalities as well. 
Again, the dweller in the room should be the predominating 
factor in it. No object, howsoever lovely of itself, should be 
more lovely than the woman who graces the apartment. No table 
should be more sturdy than the lad who studies at it. A man 
should be hero to the chair in which he sits. 
These ideas, of course, apply merely to the simple house, for 
were every woman her own decorator a healthy profession would 
pass out of existence. And even in the simple house the decor¬ 
ator stands, not as the ultimate mentor of things artistic, but as 
the one who, through hard-won experience, knows intuitively the 
most pleasing arrangement for the materials at hand. 
Every man has within him at least one house and one garden 
which, were he able to create them, would bring Nirvana. It’s 
his dream house and his dream garden, the sort of house and 
garden that he will make when he gets enough money. Some 
would have “a country place and shooting,” others just “a little 
place at Tooting,” but whatever the size or wherever the place, 
it will be his, his alone. 
A man doesn’t begin to dream this dream until he had some 
responsibility. Then it pours on him in a flood. He goes about 
its attainment almost secretly. He acquires the habit of con¬ 
sorting with antique dealers. He picks up here a lamp and there 
a chair. He drops into auction sales and buys into bondage a 
pair of candlesticks. Constantly is the dream house and the 
dream garden before him — he will put all these things in them! 
Perhaps it is good for that man that he never actually attains 
his house, that he dies in a bachelor’s apartment and leaves his 
treasures to unappreciative nieces and nephews. But it has been 
better still for him to have acquired the practice of “picking up” 
things. The phrase is unforgivably banale, but it contrasts so 
well with the technical phrase of ‘‘building up” things—and 
means so much more. For the ideal house is the house that is 
picked up: A lit-clos from Brittany, a refectory table from Italy, 
Spanish iron work, roundels from Switzerland, English linen-fold 
paneling, a German chest. Or it may be that the table comes 
from Grand Rapids and the chairs from Philadelphia. Already 
he has begun the house that is to be his and his alone—his own 
choice, his own buying. 
He may be of an utilitarian turn of mind and lay much store 
by fine mahogany doors and the staunch woodwork of an older 
generation. He will search the house-wreckers’ heaps that dot 
New York wharves, he will go into the country, where, despite 
assertions to the contrary, there still linger real antiques waiting 
to be lured from out their ancient environment. 
Then it is that he calls in a decorator who can assemble, 
arrange, or suggest changes that will make livable the house he 
has picked up. In the last analysis, this is the decorator’s raison 
d’etre —to serve those who don't know how or haven’t the time, 
the patience, or the facilities for decorating their own houses to 
the best advantage. 
A house picked up is ultimately satisfying because it gives that 
best of all results — it becomes a part of you. The neighbors may 
not appreciate your choice nor your decorator’s arrangements, but 
you have the contentment which comes with being satisfied your¬ 
self. As a gentleman in TJie Spectator once observed: 
I give a loving glance as I go 
To three brass pots on a shelf in a row. 
To my grandfather’s grandfather’s loving cup 
And a bandy-leg chair I once picked up. 
And I can’t for the life of me make you see 
Why just these things are a part of me. 
106 
