March, 1914 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
i /3 
NFW 
PORCH 
OUT 
KITCHEN 
PAWKY 
STUDY OR 
BE DR.GDM 
BACK 
DRAWNG 
R-OOM 
KITCHEN 
BACK POP£H 
HALL 
FRONT 
DRAWING 
(LOOM 
DINING 
R-OOM 
PLAN--OF- 
riR5T-FiGOR 
FRONT 
PORCH 
TRe/Jabc^ Mead House .-built \W- x 
HALF' FI NUHED 
BE f' ROOMS 
CHILDRENS 
BED P.ODM 
WEST 
BEPBO>Nl 
.SOUTH 
BED R<2)M 
LJbath 
O 
mgs 
tened &i 
irresistibly she forced the situation. The hall had been hung in 
a green burlap, which I pretended to admire because I thought we 
had done enough to the house for the time being. D. used to tweak 
any loose corner when she happened to think of it, and it came 
loose so easily! One day she tore off 
an entire side wall. That settled it. I 
had to acknowledge defeat. 1 confessed 
that the queer forms and long, tenuous 
points that it brought out bothered me, 
too, above the arch over the foot of the 
stairs, for instance, and the triangle at 
the side of the first flight. Samples of 
many wall-papers were tried before we 
learned that the finest treatment was in 
pure white with the dark color of furni¬ 
ture and banisters silhouetted against it. 
It is several years now since we painted 
it white; long enough to convince me we 
were right in eliminating all papers or 
colors. 
The dining and drawing-rooms did not 
present the same difficulty. The win¬ 
dows paneled beneath, to the floors; the 
doors and the mass of the mantel each 
was a rectangle resting on the floor; the 
ceiling, with its delicately moulded cor¬ 
nices, of course, horizontal. With no 
difficult elements there was a wide choice 
in wall treatment. The dining-room is 
now papered in pale gray and white with 
foolish little repeating landscapes such as 
old papers have; the floor is gray, and 
the only colors are in the rug; the va¬ 
rious platters hung on the walls, the ma¬ 
hogany of the furniture, and perhaps a 
mass of flowers on the table. The table 
was the rankest yellow oak, but many 
coats of white paint have done away 
with that; a little 
scheme of D.’s, I 
think, to elimi- 
nate ponderous 
table-cloths. 
When m any 
layers of paper 
were removed 
from the draw¬ 
ing-room walls, 
the plaster 
proved to be 
rough-sanded and 
colored a warm 
yellow - ochre, 
with that singu¬ 
lar clearness col¬ 
ored plaster ac¬ 
quires when the 
pigment is mixed 
with it before it 
is troweled on the 
walls. This was 
too rare and 
beautiful to cov¬ 
er with paper, so 
we let it remain, Since the amount of carpet available was not enough to cover the whole floor surface, spaces the size of the main 
and worked rugs were left uncarpeted. When the rugs were down this was not noticeable 
Both wing, ell and porch were later additions to the 
original building 
through one Sunday afternoon painting out various white smears 
and patches with yellow water-color. The ceiling had always 
been white, and the painters were none too careful with their 
splashings. The effect was altogether pleasing. 
It is a large room, but we had a carpet 
which seemed sufficient for it, of a dull, 
warm pink that harmonized perfectly 
with the wall color and with several East¬ 
ern rugs destined to go there. Accord- 
inglv, the carpet went to the cleaners; 
hut it returned a pale solferino hideously 
out of key with everything we had. 
What they did to it I do not know. We 
washed a small piece and a lathery 
something seemed to exude. A day s 
bleaching in the sun turned the piece a 
soft golden brown ! This was not at all 
what we wanted, of course, but if it 
turned from pale solferino to brown, then 
in between it must have reached the 
warm, dull pink desired. Accordingly, 
the entire carpet was spread on the grass, 
a hose played on it for two hours, and 
then left in the sun. The lathery wash- 
killed the grass, hut the color sof- 
radual'ly until it was just as it had 
been originally. 
Then a new difficulty developed, for 
there was not enough of it by ten yards! 
The double drawing-room is enormous, 
and of course it was impossible to buy 
more of exactly the color, hinally, in 
laying it, to make the most of what there 
was, we left out great squares where the 
rugs were to go, and nailed quilted paper 
there. The rugs cannot be moved with¬ 
out a sad display. 
The old mahogam 
chairs and sofa 
seats upholstered 
in warm pink ve¬ 
lour or a delicate¬ 
ly colored bro¬ 
cade, are in per¬ 
fect key. The 
color scheme is: 
Warm pink— 
carpet, chairs; 
Warm pinkish 
brown—rugs; 
Dull yellow 
ochre—walls; 
White—ceiling 
and woodwork; 
M alio gany— 
furniture; 
with small ac¬ 
cents of black and 
clear colors i n 
vases or the de¬ 
tails of hangings. 
The one large 
painting in the 
room happens to 
echo all these col¬ 
ors ; it is ap- 
( Cont., page 20 7) 
