34 
House 
& Garden 
A PAGE of COLOR SCHEMES 
Suggestions for Many Rooms that Have Been Sent 
to House iff Garden Readers 
T O the decorator and the woman who would 
furnish her home in good taste, color 
schemes are as necessary as recipes are to a 
good cook. For the color scheme of a room 
plays the major part in establishing its atmos¬ 
phere of livableness. It is what makes the 
bedroom restful, the hall hospitable, the living 
room livable, the den inviting. It brings the 
great outdoors into the enclosed porch, es¬ 
tablishes good cheer in the breakfast room and 
makes the nursery a land of wonder. 
Recognizing the importance of the coloi 
scheme, hundreds of House & Garden read¬ 
ers write in each month, asking for sugges¬ 
tions. Sometimes there is only one room to 
be redecorated, sometimes an entire house. 
The decorator in charge of these problems has 
planned out in one day an apartment, an offi¬ 
cers’ recreation room, a dentist's office and a 
country house. This service, which is given 
free of charge, is fast becoming one of the most 
important of the magazine’s activities. That 
the readers appreciate its value can be judged 
by their numerous letters. 
’ To show the scope of this service and the 
detailed instructions given are appended a 
few of the letters taken at random from the 
files. Perhaps your problem is here. If none 
of these color schemes fits your rooms, why not 
write The Information Service about them.-" 
T HE first letter is from a reader in New 
Jersey who had an all-year country home. 
She enclosed a rough floor plan of the house 
showing how the rooms are arranged and what 
the exposure is, and asked for some brief sug¬ 
gestions. To her these suggestions were made: 
“In your dining room I should use draperies of 
Japanese silk, matching the wall paper in tone. Up¬ 
holster the furniture in a striped material of har¬ 
monious shade, and use an Axminster rug. 
“Briefly, I should do the other rooms as follows: 
The hall’in a warm gray; in the living room, a 
brown rug, cretonne curtains of tan, rose and a 
little blue, rose-colored lamp-shades; in your bed¬ 
room, blue walls and rug, with chintz hangings of 
blue and yellow, yellow shades for the lights; in the 
boy’s room, tan walls, a green rug, hangings of striped 
tan and green; in the guest room, gray walls, rose 
hangings and deep rose carpet.” 
ANOTHER reader, in Texas, wants her 
trellised breakfast room decorated. So 
she received the following: 
“Your idea of using painted furniture is excellent, 
and I agree with you that it would be better to utilize 
some other color than white for this furniture. One 
reason for this is that the small breakfast room with 
trellis and plants really needs a good deal of color 
in the same way that a solarium does. 
“I was talking to a prominent New York decora¬ 
tor the other day and he described to me the color 
scheme to be used for a small sun room, which I 
think would be exceptionally attractive in your break¬ 
fast room. The fundamental colors were green— a 
soft, grayed, apple green—and lavender. 
The furniture was painted in the former 
color, a great favorite just now, and most 
atractive in effect. In the use of lavender 
lay the novelty of the room. This was in¬ 
troduced in small silken shades for the 
lights, and in the hangings which were of 
linen with a striking flowered design in 
lavender and green. I think that you would 
find the working out of this idea would 
produce a very cheerful and restful room 
to begin the day in.” 
A THIRD reader, this time from 
Pennsylvania, wants to know 
what paper and rugs to use in her 
dining-room which contains walnut and oak 
furniture and many built-in cupboards, and 
how to paper a bedroom which has twin brass 
beds and walnut dresser: 
“In the first place, I advise your using a gray two- 
tone striped paper in the dining room. The up and 
down lines of the stripes will to some extent neutral¬ 
ize the horizontal lines of the cupboards, and make 
a good background for them. For floor covering I 
suggest a rug made of strips of mulberry-colored 
carpeting sewn together. I his idea of sewing carpet 
to form a rug is economical and very successful as 
well. 
“In the bedrooms use: (1) A small flowered paper 
with a cream background, or (2) a tan striped papei. 
Both of these are restful and unobtrusive, thoroughly 
suited to a bedroom.” 
F ROM Virginia a reader writes for color 
schemes for four bedrooms. These sug¬ 
gestions were made: 
" “I submit a few ideas for the bedrooms. In each 
case, accessories may be taken to mean the little in¬ 
cidental furnishings which can do so much to lend 
color and character to a room, and whose value 
is so often neglected—a lamp, a bowl, painted light¬ 
ing-fixtures, and so on. 
“(1) Mulberry or plum-colored rug; sage green 
taffeta hangings and bed covers; Colonial striped 
paper; accessories of lemon yellow. 
“(2) Yellow wall paper; green rug; hangings and 
bed cover of figured material, green, yellow and blue; 
accessories of vermilion. 
“(3) Tan cartridge or blend paper; brown rug; 
hangings of large design on a tan background, acces¬ 
sories of peacock blue. 
“(4) Pale mulberry striped paper; lavender rug; 
old rose hangings; window curtains and bed cover 
of white taffeta piped with lavender.” 
T HE next problem comes from North 
Carolina. It is an old house surrounded 
with fir trees, and the rooms had to be made 
cheery. These are the suggestions: 
“In" the first place I advise your having the wood¬ 
work of the dining room finished in white or ivory 
flat finish paint. You will find the flat finish more 
satisfactory than the shiny enamel. For the walls 
I suggest a Colonial striped paper in pale yellow— 
avoid lemon yellow, of course—and Delft blue tiles 
are permissible for the fireplace. I should have 
undercurtains of very thin cream net, and overdra- 
peries of blue and yellow striped taffeta, or if you 
prefer, of linen in which blue and yellow predomi¬ 
nate. 
“An attractive and appropriate sort of pictures 
to use in this room would be English prints in nar¬ 
row black frames. 
“In the sitting room use a cartridge paper of 
warm tone, and over-curtains of thin yellow silk. 
You will need this coloring to warm and brighten 
the room since it has a northern exposure. If you 
want to add a touch of distinction to the curtains, 
I would pipe them with a band of blue silk on the 
edge. The fireplace might be finished in cream- 
colored brick.” 
H ERE is a New York apartment in which 
the problems were mostly mechanical. 
You can judge from the answers what the ques¬ 
tions were: 
“1. For unlined curtains in the dining room you 
could use an orange sunfast which could be made 
to fall below the sill, and with a valance at top, or 
a silvery green gauze to be carried to the floor. 
“2. Taut wires and pulleys for draw curtains are 
to be had at any department store, together with the 
necessary rods and rings. 
“3. It would be perfectly feasible to arrange un¬ 
lined curtains so that they will draw. 
“4. I would suggest that your net sill curtains 
be hemmed instead of edged with lace. 
“5. These curtains should be hung on a rod where 
the curtain poles go. 
“6. In the living room for full length hangings 
you might use either striped silk of fairly heavy qual¬ 
ity or a cotton rep with blue and browns mixed. If 
you want a lined curtain I would use a cretonne. 
“7. Sateen is a very good material for lining. 
“8. Figured linens should always be lined, be¬ 
cause the texture is such that they lose design _ and 
color when the light comes through them. Lining 
preserves tire silk, but it is not necessary. 
“9. There is no reason why portieres and window 
hangings should be the same; in fact the portieres 
should be made inconspicuous both as to color and 
design. 
“10. Poles for full length window hangings should 
be either dull brass rods or wooden rods covered 
with cretonne of the same material as the curtains. 
This last is an excellent treatment now being used 
by the best decorators.” 
F ROM the Louisiana State University 
comes the problem of furnishing a model 
apartment to use in demonstrations for a class. 
The professor sent in sketches of the rooms 
and in return these suggestions were made: 
“In the dining room I should use a Seminole flat 
weave rug—to be had for $3 the square yard—in 
soft green with a darker green border. With this, 
green painted furniture with a mulberry stripe will 
be very charming. I suggest your getting a table, 
four side chairs, two arm chairs and a buffet. Ihe 
walls should be in soft tan with burlap one tone 
deeper, while at the windows you might have under 
curtains of soft beige scrim with overdrapes of Eng¬ 
lish chintz in green, mulberry and tan. 
“Over the mantel in this room I should have a 
print in soft greens and other colors, framed in plain 
brown. For the bedroom I should suggest your get¬ 
ting a three-foot bed of the day bed type, painted in 
soft blue and upholstered in striped floral cretonne, 
which should also be used for your overdrapes with 
under curtains of white scrim. Other necessary ar¬ 
ticles of furniture will be a chiffonier (preferably with 
a mirror), a dressing table with single or triplicate 
mirror, a straight chair with rush seat, a dressing table 
stool, a wicker easy chair with cretonne cushioning, 
and a small night stand with a lamp. This furniture 
should all be painted to match the bed. A plain 
rug will be best for the floor.” 
I N an Illinois home were two bedrooms that 
proved hard to decorate. The reader found 
these ideas of value: 
“The difficulty you have in giving these bedrooms 
a cosy appearance is probably caused by the fact that 
the color of the wall paint is too cold for a northern 
exposure. Your task is to make the rooms cheerful 
and bright in spite of the cold, gray blue of the walls. 
For this reason I should advise your using thin 
under curtains with overdrapes rather than the 
ruffled curtains you suggest. The under curtains 
I should make of quite a deep shade of 
cream scrim. 
“In the room with maple furniture I 
should have overdrapes of a French cre¬ 
tonne in rose and blue with a ruffled 
valance across the top. I would make the 
bed cover of this same material. The rug 
might be of a very deep old rose, and the 
fireplace chair upholstered in old rose. For 
the lamp I should use a plain parchment 
shade with a blue border. 
“In the other bedroom I should have a 
mulberry rug. At the windows you might 
have a cretonne of mulberry and yellow, 
or if you prefer, you may dispense with 
over-curtains here and use cream colored 
casement cloth bound with mulberry silk.” 
