House and Garden 
A DINING TABLE AND FOUR RUSH BOTTOM CHAIRS 
The First Serious Work 
present to serve its best uses. The color echoes to a certain extent, 
while not the same, the tones in the room below, as if these were 
indeed a soul emanation of the mistress herself. A plain cartridge 
paper of bluish gray is on the wall. Here and there are hung, 
showing well against it, a few scattered prints and engravings, 
seemingly placed spontaneously and carelessly, in the right spot. A 
fireplace is here and the mantel arrangement deserves special atten¬ 
tion. It is charming, one of the choicest bits in the house. The 
material is California red wood and the plan and spacings are de¬ 
lightful. It was designed in one of those happy mo¬ 
ments, we are told, when everything strangely falls irto 
the right place and the result appears, not as a thing 
labored over but as an inspiration. 1 he long hinges of 
brass are very decorative and unique. This quality is 
felt as you glimpse one of those charming surprises of 
detail in the bit of bright green just discernible in the 
narrow aperture of the hinge end. Overhanging the 
fireplace below is a hand beaten copper hood. Upon 
this a Scandinavian device encloses a disc which 
symbolically presents the common signature of the 
makers. One returns to this interesting mantelpiece 
again and again to enjoy and study it. 
At the right of the fireplace is a corner seat which is 
continued to the broad window in front. At the left, 
is a work table and high stool before a smaller window 
through which comes the western light. 
A doorway opposite that of the studio leads from the 
upper hall to a bedroom. Here a four-posted bed 
catches and holds one’s attention. It is made of light 
mahogany and is beautifully carved, in an interlaced 
pattern after Celtic design. One is prepared to consider 
this an antique and can hardly be persuaded that it too 
is the work of the same skilful hands and brains that 
have fashioned and planned so many of the interesting 
things we have seen. This, however, we are assured is 
one of the earlier pieces of these craft workers. The 
curtains and spread are of a creamy Russian linen, 
homespun, broadly hem-stitched. The right hand 
corner of the room is occupied by a low dressing table 
and long mirror. Near the door is a fine old bureau, 
an antique this time, above which hangs an oval mirror. 
This completes the simple furnishing of the room. 
From the windows, curtained with a fabric which is 
stenciled in an iris pattern, blue and green in color, one 
looks down, at the back, upon the home flower garden 
with a profusion of roses and iris and old-fashioned 
annuals; and at the side one overlooks the neighbors’ 
garden. 
All through the house there is a sense of use and of 
comfort and a feeling that, lovely as it is, it is not “too 
bright and good” to minister to the needs of a home, 
but forms a fitting background for the life lived T here. 
Books and other signs show the taste of the in-dwellers 
for the beautiful in thought or material. This is to be 
discerned too in the choice of motif and the use of 
symbol now and then, used it may be with a more subtle 
pleasure that only the sympathetic can rightly appre¬ 
hend, while to others it remains charming as a decora¬ 
tive raison d'etre. 
The outside of the house has received attention too, 
and changes have been wrought by the planting and 
training of vines hut especially by the addition of a 
broad piazza replacing the former meager porch. This 
runs across the front of the house, and turning the 
corners, continues half way along the side. Here a 
short flight of steps, vine-clad, lead to the ground and 
on to the blossoming garden beyond. This porch offers 
a most welcome retreat on warm days, veiled by ines 
and Japanese screens from the street and allowing 
pretty glimpses at every hand of yard or garden. A 
hammock is swung and chairs brought out, and a table-bench 
holds inviting cushions. Tea and even luncheon is often served 
here, peas and strawberries being supplied for this function 
quite fresh from the graden. 
Certainly in studying this home and its many charms and per¬ 
fections it would seem in these days of specialization that we 
are oftentimes too apt to limit skill and invention within definite 
bounds, for here is evidence that versatility is an attribute of the 
able. In the whole there is a unity of effect combined with 
A CORNER OF THE DINING-ROOM 
Stencil on Walls of Horse-Chestnut Design 
66 
