International studio (25.1905)

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DINING ROOM IN RESIDENCE OF C. W. WISNER, WARWICK, N. Y.

restful feeling once in a
while to get rid of all
the padding of life and
down to bare boards.
Imagine the charm, on
a muggy August day,
with pleasant people
gathered for afternoon
tea, of the pretty hall,
as on the next page, with
all its rugs and cush-
ions away, and only
the low-toned walls, the
shimmering wood and
the flowers left.
If the wholly bare
floor does not quite ap-
prove itself, matting
rugs may take the place
of the woolen ones. The
mere change to a light
floor covering trans-
forms a room. The dull
green and orange tones
of fibre rugs are agreeable, and cotton carpet
rugs, with their beautiful texture and quaint col-
ouring are indefinitely durable as well as pleasing,
although several small ones are better than one
large one. The East Indian drugget, which covers
the floors and stairs of the hall illustrated, with its
combination of low tones of brown, red and yellow,
and black, is agreeable in rooms of strong colour-
ing. In the room illustrated the walls are deep
orange, the curtains a dull green. Even the car-
peted room, though now happily unusual, is not
hopeless. Entirely covered with blue or green
denim, or even with grey dancing crash, it affords
a restful expanse of plain tint.
Contrary to the opinion of the old-fashioned
housekeeper, summer is the time when curtains
should be most in evidence, not thick hangings to
exclude the air, nor thin ones to reflect the light,
but short curtains, preferably of moderately thin
cotton, not too light in colour. They soften the
light and give an agreeable line of colour. The
large dining-room, for instance, is much improved
for summer use by the substitution of figured cotton
crepe curtains for the thin net ones in use for the
rest of the year, while the heavy hangings across
the large window are entirely removed.
The mention of slip covers calls up a vision of
shapeless swathings of striped grey linen, bound
with scarlet braid, valuable often as a disguise for
hopelessly shabby furniture. We have changed

all that. The modern slip cover, of flowered chintz
or of striped cotton, is not for concealment but for
transformation. Your room with two-toned green
walls, with upholstery of tapestry and leather,
artistic, indeed, but undeniably sombre, is hardly
recognizable, when the rugs are rolled away and
chairs, couches and pillows come out in covers of
cretonne with a bambop pattern in green on a white
ground; or of chintz bright with daSodils and their
soft, green leaves; or of pink-flowered taffetas.
One mission room, with a burnt-orange wall, has,
for its summer array, slip covers for the pillows
of red and blue Java print and a blue-grey dhurrie
for the floor. In the fire-place and on the tables
are always great masses of scarlet, orange and
brown nasturtiums. A certain drawing-room
which, in the season, is extremely fine in rose-
coloured brocade, spends the summer in pink and
white striped cotton slip covers and a pink and
grey rag rug.
The ideal piazza provides for the requirements
of all the family and their friends, including even
pussy's cushion and the dog's basket, and, as befits
the most occupied part of the house, should have a
colour scheme of its own, which should be chosen
with reference to the walls of the house. On the
piazza illustrated, cushions of red calico with a
small black figure were used, with the green furni-
ture, and the rugs were rag ones of green and white.
Dark green furniture, with green and white striped

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