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A Dado of Matting 
'VX 7 'HERE the paper on the walls of 
* * rooms, especially of dining-rooms, 
becomes injured by the chairs that have 
been pushed against it carelessly, an ef¬ 
fective remedy of the damaged appear¬ 
ance is to be found in taking breadths of 
Japanese matting of attractive patterns, 
using it as a dado. It is easily tacked on 
the walls and may be finished at the top 
with a strip of molding, flat or beveled, 
painted or stained to harmonize with the 
room’s color scheme. As it comes a yard 
wide, Japanese matting will be found to 
be just the right width for the purpose. 
In nailing on the matting use thin wire 
nails; eighteen inches apart is near enough 
as there is no strain on the molding and 
it is merely a decorative finish. 
Laura Page 
A Handy Bit of Sand-Paper 
A NEIGHBOR of mine is building a 
home in which she will have a 
white and green kitchen. “I want to see 
if it will not be as easy to keep clean in 
a place like that as in a dirt-colored one,” 
she says. 
In preparation for the moving, she is 
herself using white paint or enamel on 
every possible piece of her old kitchen 
furnishings, giving even the wash-tubs a 
liberal coat on the outside. But as the 
table and chairs were extremely rough, 
she began sand-papering them, doing only 
a little each morning. With a bit of sand¬ 
paper on a handy shelf she finds herself 
using it for many other things as well, 
and considers it one of the most helpful 
things she can have in her kitchen. A 
little rubbing of rough surfaces with it 
works marvels. L. McC. 
Choosing Curtains 
I N choosing curtains and hangings for 
any room remember that the outer 
ones—those that hang “next to the room,” 
as it were, are almost the most important 
considerations in it. They fall against the 
wall so directly, and receive the light so 
strongly that if they are not just right 
they will, in all probability be thoroughly 
wrong and throw the whole room out of 
harmony. Therefore in choosing for color 
select those colors that harmonize or con¬ 
trast properly with the main color (wall 
color) of the room. In choosing quality 
choose a material neither too rich for the 
room nor too poor for it. The problem 
of sash curtains is infinitely more simple. 
One may be right with almost any well 
chosen pattern in Arabian nets and in 
muslins, both plain and dotted. 
Trays of Japanese Stencils 
S OME time ago I noticed an article in 
IIouSE & Garden on the beautiful 
stencils cut by the Japanese stencil ar¬ 
tists. It occurs to me that some of your 
readers might be interested in knowing 
of an excellent use to which they may be 
put. This is to mount them between two 
pieces of glass having a metal or wooden 
rim with handles to make a serving tray 
of the whole. The prettiest trays are 
those having dark wooden rims that har¬ 
monize with the dark-colored materials 
from which the stencils are cut. One 
may obtain these trays from any large 
dealer in decorative household goods, and 
insert the stencils themselves. Interesting 
1 
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Why do not more of us emulate the excellent 
example of German housekeepers and make 
kitchen receptacles that are beautiful as 
well as useful? 
pieces of embroidery and bits of old bro¬ 
cade may be used instead of the stencils 
to good effect. Laura Page 
Save the Window-Sills 
T N order to avoid marring some beauti- 
fully wide, new window-sills with 
my house plants, I purchased a clay sau¬ 
cer for each pot, only to find, after a few 
days’ use that the moisture had gone 
through them also. So, in desperation, I 
painted the saucers inside and out with 
some dull brown paint, filling the porous 
pottery completely. Now I set the pots 
about without fear of finding ugly circles 
beneath them. A neighbor tells me that a 
thick grease put inside the saucers would 
have a like effect, rendering them imper¬ 
vious. The pots themselves are never to 
be painted, because the roots need air and 
drainage, but the saucers are useless un¬ 
less so treated. L. McC. 
Rag Rugs 
S O many varieties of attractive rag rugs 
are to be found in the market to-day 
that there prevails an impression that cut¬ 
ting and sewing rag strips to be woven 
into rugs is a waste of time and energy 
in this progressive age. But I doubt if 
it is likely that one will find for sale any¬ 
where rag rugs whose colors will stand 
so well as old-fashioned ones such as I 
have had in constant use for the past ten 
years, rugs that now look as fresh as 
when they were woven, for, being blue 
and white, I have never permitted them 
to become too soiled before sending them 
to the cleaner’s. The secret of the old 
blue's holding its color under the hard 
wear lies in the fact that I used only old 
blue calicos and ginghams, and old blue 
materials of that sort in preparing the rag 
strips for the weaver. They had been 
washed over and over and I could count 
on their not fading more. Old durable 
colors that have had the same test, such 
as old-fashioned Turkey red cottons, old 
woolens, like that found in red, blue and 
gray flannel shirts, could be used to great 
advantage as well by cutting the strips of 
such materials somewhat narrower. But 
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