22 
House & Garden 
MORE COLOR SCHEMES for the AMATEUR DECORATOR 
A House & Garden Service That Takes the Trouble out of 
Furnishing and Re-Furnishing 
M Y living room needs new curtains and 
over draperies and I want valances. 
And I am at a loss what kind to get. I will 
describe the room and perhaps you can help 
me. The room is 14 by 23, has two double 
doors and two double windows and triple win¬ 
dow. They are two feet from the floor, from 
window sill. The room has a fireplace and 
beam ceiling, and a medium lighted room. 
The walls are gray, plain picture rail, 18 inches 
from the ceiling, a wide one, and woodwork is 
all light oak. I do not like oak finished, but 
it is new and I must not change it. 
Do lace figured curtains make a room look 
small? I have plain green over draperies and 
plain velour door draperies, shall I take the 
velour down for summer? I am going to take 
the large rug out for this summer and I am 
having rag rugs crocheted for it, about three 
or four, and they are black, gray, old rose hit 
and miss. They are bright, not as old fash¬ 
ioned as they might be. My furniture is all 
upholstered in dull colors of tapestry, and it’s 
mahogany. 
I like a change and sometimes run out of 
ideas. House & Garden does help me so 
much, though, but my colors are not good. I 
cannot keep them from mixing. I thank you 
very kindly for your suggestions and I am sure 
to make use of them. I want good quality cur¬ 
tain materials. 
We have your very interesting letter and we 
would suggest in curtaining your living room 
that you do not use lace curtains, but rather 
scrim or net. 
On page 42 of our March issue, you will see 
a variety of window treatments, which may be 
of help to you. 
For your over-curtains, we would suggest a 
gay looking chintz, and on page 33 of the same 
issue mentioned above, we show a very decora¬ 
tive one with blue and mauve flow'ers on a grav 
ground. It is very brilliant in color, and would 
be very appropriate in the room in which you 
describe. 
We would suggest that you take down the 
velour door draperies for the summer and use 
this cretonne instead. The rag rugs which you 
have purchased would go very well with this 
suggestion, and we would also advise having 
slip covers made of the same cretonne. 
As to your dining room, we would suggest 
the same window treatment, as to glass curtains, 
rather than lace curtains, and we will be glad 
to send you samples, for your selection, if you 
so desire. 
Valances are still being used, of course, but 
we would suggest yours to be made of cretonne 
rather than velvet. 
W E have just taken a large old-fashioned 
country house which is presenting several 
problems. 
The living room is 15 by 20 feet. The 
woodwork is finished in ivory. Since the base¬ 
board around the room is deep, 16 inches, and 
the window and door frames very heavy, the 
ivory is quite prominent in the room. There 
are window shelves, too, 11 inches deep out 
from the windows over the radiators. 
There are some open bookshelves on one 
side of an old-fashioned (oval opening) mar¬ 
House furnishing, like woman's work, is never 
done. One is constantly changing rooms about, 
buying new rugs, new curtains, replacing the old 
furniture with new or re-upholstering. In solv¬ 
ing these problems expert advice is invaluable. 
You can have this expert advice direct from a 
practicing decorator by writing to The Informa¬ 
tion Service, House & Garden, 19 West 44 th St., 
New York City. Your personal problems will be 
answered promptly and in detail just as these on 
this page have been solved. 
ble fireplace. There is a seat on the other 
side, both of which are finished in the ivory. 
The windows are large, 3 feet 4 inches by 5 
feet 11 inches. 
The color scheme is the problem here. I 
should like to use a casement cloth at the win¬ 
dows and no shades or blinds, but I can’t seem 
to find anything that appeals to me here. In 
the dining room I have used unbleached mus¬ 
lin dyed a golden yellow. The windows there 
are the same size. The dining room has white 
woodwork, and blue walls, the electrolier is 
yellow, too. The whole effect is most pleas- 
ing. 
In the living room, then, I have the problem 
of curtains, a rug (plain color preferred) the 
upholstery for a Chesterfield and chair, possi¬ 
bly two, there is also a chance for a little added 
color in the parchment shades for the candle 
side lights. There are four in the room. From 
your store of color schemes what would you 
suggest ? 
In the sun room, the floor, walls, ceiling and 
window frames must be painted. We thought 
of using a willow swing on the order of the il¬ 
lustration shown on page 45 of the May, 1917, 
issue of House & Garden. Then also a gate 
leg table, painted, with the painted chairs so 
we could use the room for a breakfast room 
when desired. The other chairs and desk in 
the room are willow. The sun room is 8 feet 
by 24 feet. What color paint would you sug¬ 
gest being used for the walls, ceiling and floor, 
also what color on the furniture? The hang¬ 
ings and rug are also a problem there. 
We agree with you that there is nothing 
more attractive than using casement cloth at 
the window instead of shades, and with this it 
would be well to use a gay chintz as a covering 
for your Chesterfield and chairs. 
For your floor covering, we would suggest a 
one-tone carpet, of the darkest gray tone in your 
wall paper. If you have any furniture to be 
painted, we would suggest your painting it that 
lovely fawn gray ground in the paper, which 
you enclosed. 
For your parchment shades, they might be 
black with little nosegays of gay colored flowers 
painted on them. These would be most at¬ 
tractive and thoroughly in harmony with the 
rest of the scheme. 
For your sun room, we would suggest your 
painting the walls and ceiling a soft gray 
green and the floor stained a very dark brown 
—that would leave you with many possibilities 
for the furniture—it might be painted black 
with gay flowered chintz cushions, or it might 
be painted orange with plain green linen cush¬ 
ions, and green stripes on the chairs and tables, 
or it might be painted an antique cream with 
lines of green and a few bright colored chintz 
cushions. 
Any one of these schemes it seems to us 
would be attractive and give you an effect 
which you would like. 
W ILL you kindly answer the following 
questions and greatly help one of your 
perplexed readers ? 
A. The living room in the apartment I have 
to redecorate has cream colored panelled walls 
which I want to change. My furniture I will 
re-cover in peacock blue. Kindly suggest ma¬ 
terial to use on mahogany with empire rosettes 
and decorations in brass. Would a silk bro¬ 
cade be better than velour and what shall I 
use for over-stuffed sofa and two chairs. I am 
quite at a loss to decide these points. 
B. What furniture can you suggest for din¬ 
ing room with southern exposure, opening off 
above living room, smart, but not tremendously 
expensive ? 
C. What coloring for a bedroom also facing 
south and what paper to put on walls. I want 
something original and rather sombre. 
D. Halls are also panelled in cream. What 
shall I do with them? Not gray or putty, as 
I do not care for either. I want something 
startling and not like what so many other 
people have. 
A. For your living room, we would suggest 
that you paint your walls robin’s egg blue. On 
some of the furniture, we would suggest your 
using peacock blue velvet. On the other fur¬ 
niture, we would suggest your using a mauve 
and blue brocade, which color combination we 
think would be very smart and unusual. 
B. For your dining room furniture, we 
would suggest your having a painted gray 
green Directoire set with touches of gold to 
be upholstered in a wide green and gold stripe. 
C. For your bedroom, we would suggest a 
deep fawn colored wall paper, with a wide 
stripe, which would be an interesting back¬ 
ground for walnut furniture. 
D. For your halls, since you would like 
something original, we would suggest your 
using the spaces made by the panels for some 
very interesting wall paper, which may be 
heavily shellacked. There is a wall paper 
shown on page 37 of the April issue, which 
would serve very well for this purpose. It is 
the central one on the page, known as the 
Cordova Colonial design. This, set in the 
panels with the styles painted a gray green, 
would be effective. 
