May, 19 21 
SS 
where one hopes to pitch a last city tent 
away from “long unlovely rows” and dis¬ 
cordant city ugliness, there is always a 
back alley in one’s dreams where one finds 
the perfect little American summer shelter, 
surrounded by a bit of tangled garden. I 
can shut my eyes and see mine, and most 
men can do likewise and see theirs. The 
visionary house has a gambrel roof and its 
clapboarded walls are gray and time- 
stained. It has many windows suggestive 
of kind old eyes still taking a fresh and 
vivid interest in passing events; up around 
the vast attic they are half circular in 
shape, which makes them slightly quizzi¬ 
cal. Ancient domiciles do impress the 
sensitive mind with their personalities and 
mine reposes under its elms, a sleepy, 
Quaker sort of creature with a humorous 
Georgian tolerance, glad enough to let the 
world pass by, but never spurning it. In¬ 
side I should strive to keep all the sunlit 
color and joy of summer, a very reflection 
of the garden’s face, for 
rain is sure to come some¬ 
times and blur the case¬ 
ments, and cold and east 
wind shut one indoors. 
The Color Scheme 
The most perfect color 
scheme for the interior of 
a country cottage, what¬ 
ever its period or shape, is 
a very pale cream yellow, 
a buttermilk tint, and 
fresh poison green, the 
Chinese color of ecstasy. 
All my walls would be this 
cream color and my wood¬ 
work from living room to 
scullery the never-failing 
freshness of young foliage. 
Here is the background 
for summer and the pro¬ 
cession of flowers. The 
cream walls remain sug¬ 
gestive of coming sunlight, 
whether the day is fine or 
not, and the green sur¬ 
rounds, and throws into 
high relief the pinks and 
blues, the purples and 
whites of peonies, lark¬ 
spur, petunias and lilies. 
As there are never flow¬ 
ers enough in the cottage garden, I would 
hang pictures of long-vanished flowers on 
mv walls, Oriental allurements and Euro¬ 
pean fantasies, the backgrounds pale blue 
gauche or deeper sapphire. The very few 
gros-point and hook rugs would have 
flowers also, soft faded things, as if the 
ghosts of flowers formed a sub-strata for 
the living. 
All my floors would be stained or painted 
a shadowy yellow, a dim yellow that might 
be yellow at noon and take gray shadows 
as the day advanced until twilight fell and 
flooded it with pools of mystery. 
“Do design me some very smart country- 
ish rooms like the Duchess of X— might 
(Above) A 
gray, rose and 
green paper 
has been used 
on this farm¬ 
house bed¬ 
room. Cur¬ 
tains are pink 
organdie 
have in her little place in Sussex,” said a 
famous New York woman to her London 
furnisher. 
“I must create an 18th Century Ameri¬ 
can room with precious American things 
for my Long Island house, but I want the 
same feeling hers gives me.” 
“That is impossible, madam, for the 
duchess is smart enough to be unsmart,” 
was the rebuke. 
The period room, the nightmare of the 
ignoramus, is a terrible fallacy. Nobody 
who was anybody ever had one. The 
rooms in great English country houses fur¬ 
nished in the time of the Second Charles 
(usually the first period more or less in¬ 
tact) or later always have garnitures and 
caresses of other periods. Generations 
have lived in them, and although they may 
not have had the desire or the wherewithal 
to disturb a costly beauty, they have left 
their little impress. “No famous English 
room ever looks famous without some 
souvenir of Victoria,” was 
the witticism of Lady 
Paget. 
Another view of the same room shows 
an attractive, somewhat formal curtain¬ 
ing of the windows. The house con¬ 
tains a variety of furniture and com¬ 
bines the comfort of a city house with 
the simplicity of a country cottage 
As to furniture, who 
can tell a man just what 
to purchase when his ideal 
of an interior may be 
some glittering hieroglyph 
of costly Russian ballet or¬ 
namentation, bounded by 
huge silken grotesques in 
the way of cushions? Or 
again, he may sigh to live 
among antique shop win¬ 
dows, slightly confusing 
perhaps in a land where 
there are so many. One 
need not be a sentimental¬ 
ist about family posses¬ 
sions and dwell with the 
pet horrors that stultified 
the mind of a grandparent, 
but I see no need of put¬ 
ting to death the things 
one liked simply because 
the richer neighbor strug¬ 
gles toward perfections. 
The real secret of suc¬ 
cessful country cottage 
rooms—in the living room, 
especially—is a mellow, 
inviting quality. The furniture may be 
oak, walnut, maple or pine—or a catholic 
meeting of a little of everything—the cream 
walls, the flat green paint and the flowers 
supply the fresh youthful note, but the 
chairs, tables, sofas and all essentials must 
have lived. Take a half dozen pieces of 
furniture born with grace in different lands 
a century or so ago, and if they chance to 
(Continued on page 88) 
(Above) A n 
old-fashioned 
paper, hooked 
rugs and a 
Franklin 
stove have 
been used in 
this farm¬ 
house room 
Furniture 
