April, 19 21 
23 
A CINDERELLA ROOM AND SOME OTHERS 
Illustrating the Decorative Use of Exceptional Wall Papers in 
Completing Town and Country Houses 
RUBY ROSS GOODNOW 
I N April the decorator’s idea of heaven 
is a' mansion of countless rooms, and 
countless lovely and suitable papers 
with which to hang them. An angelic and 
an infinite task! But even rooms as they 
exist, and wall papers as they exist, are thrill¬ 
ing in Spring. I often wonder 
if there is a pleasanter job in 
the world than that of the 
paper hanger, who waves his 
slap-dash brush and realizes a 
miracle. What a thrill it must 
be, this producing a garden 
out of nothingness. I like to 
sit quietly in the corner of a 
room in process of being pa¬ 
pered and watch the amazing 
orderly business of pattern 
meeting pattern. Few pro¬ 
cesses are more* encouraging to 
the beholder, for rooms also 
may be Cinderellas. 
Take, for instance, the trans¬ 
formation of a dull room in a 
great city house, a drab poor 
relation of a room among a 
dozen charming neighbors, an 
uninteresting oblong box with 
a grim northern exposure, no 
sunshine, no fireplace, no ac¬ 
cent of interest. Its two win¬ 
dows looked out upon brick 
walls with not a tree- to break 
theirmonotonous red. No room 
could have been less promis¬ 
ing, and yet, through the 
miracle of a blossoming wall¬ 
paper, through the inspiration 
of rainbow masses of birds 
and flowers and grasses in 
fresh pale color, this room be¬ 
came the gay young child of 
the house. It was’planned like 
a garden, with a deep green 
carpet for greensward, and 
palest blue painted ceiling for 
sky, and this* delicate 18th 
Century paper for flowering. 
This wall paper was found 
in an old trunk in a London 
attic, rolls and rolls of it, very 
early Victorian in design, and 
delicately thin in texture. But 
fortunately it also had a long narrow corridor 
connecting with the main hallway of the house 
and a connecting bath as well, and so it was 
possible to make it into a guest room which 
might be used ordinarily by the mistress of 
the house as a sitting room. 
When the color of the room 
had been determined (deep 
bronze-green carpet, faint blue 
trim and ceiling from the 
ground of the paper) it still 
remained a difficult, if lovely, 
box. But there is a sort of 
divine luck which grows out 
of such difficulties, for every¬ 
thing brought into this room 
seemed more than right. 
The collection of Frieseke 
paintings, budding orchards 
and red haired women and 
muslin babies, which seemed 
to belong nowhere, found them¬ 
selves here in exactly the right 
setting. A piece of silk made 
before the war, thick cream 
faille, striped broadly in. rose 
and yellow, made delightful 
curtains. The hideous radia¬ 
tor placed under one window 
necessitated a cover, so two 
small cabinets were made, one 
to be used as a cabinet for 
books and the other to screen 
the radiator. Pale yellow 
paint, striped in green, and 
yellow marble tops and great 
turquoise colored Persian jars 
of flowers, brought these cabi¬ 
nets up to the mark of the 
room. 
On the wall space- between 
the two windows an old com¬ 
mode of glowing marquetry, 
with marble top, was placed 
and this also was massed with 
flowers—all kinds of flowers in 
all kinds of vases. Above this 
commode a large Venetian mir¬ 
ror, tarnished and faintly gilt, 
was hung. Old mirrors are 
particularly lovely against 
brilliant paper, so two old 
English appliques, with their 
once safely on these solid walls it became an 
eternal hanging garden, a proof of the per¬ 
manence of the flimsy. The room in which 
it was used was a sort of left over, probably 
intended for a. maid’s room in connection with 
the large bedroom into which it opened. But 
A small box of a hall has its wall spaces papered in plain green-blue, and wide 
borderings at cornice and corners cut from a Directoire wall paper printed in 
yellow, green, blue and white 
