and Decorating 
Moderate Cost 
By KATE GREENLEAF LOCKE 
A S the typical American is the man of moderate 
means so the typical American home is the one 
which strikes the happy mean between that 
which is artificially gorgeous and showy and the one 
in which the limitations of embarrassed circumstances 
prevent an attempt at decorative effects or any dis¬ 
tinct line of furnishing. The home which is designed 
for the’ enjoyment of living, which is created to 
minister to the individual tastes of its occupants, 
is the one which is to be described in this article; for¬ 
tunately this class of building is growing in popular¬ 
ity and spreading far afield in its exemplifications. 
Its ofttimes quaint simplicity and undoubted artistic 
completeness attracts the rich man who is tired of 
living for show, and he builds a house of modest 
pretensions simply because it appeals to his artistic 
instincts and because of its “home” suggestion. 
On the other hand, there are also recruits from the 
poorer classes as very few men or women are, in 
these prosperous days, too poor to cherish ideals in 
the matter of home-building and furnishing. Thus 
it is that the house of this class (that is the house of 
moderate cost) has come to represent the typical 
dwelling of the majority of the American people. 
Out of this concrete desire among people of culture 
to express themselves artistically in building, has 
sprung some distinct types of architecture and with the 
architect a style of furnishing which befits it. When 
we would classify the types of furnishing among those 
which are purely American we begin with the Colonial. 
Formed of a selection from the English, French and 
Flemish furniture of the period when the European 
colonists settled and became communities in this 
country, it represented the taste of those communi¬ 
ties rather than of individuals. So well was the 
selection made that we have never improved upon 
it, and to-day the “Colonial” stands for the best 
and most refined taste in furnishing and decorating 
a house as well as in its architectural construction. 
Colonial architecture, as well as Colonial furniture, 
has been so thoroughly exploited since we have 
returned (after a lapse of threescore years) to a sincere 
appreciation of it, that it would be superfluous to 
describe it here and yet it would be impossible to 
enumerate the types of houses and f urnishing which 
have grown out of the needs and tastes of America 
without alluding to it. There are two styles of 
Colonial houses in the United States—the Northern 
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