Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-04
EVOLUTION OF TASTE
As Shown in the Latest Window
Shades and Wall Hangings.
SIMPLICITY NOW ALL THE STYLE.
Wood Filagree and Stained Glass for Sum-
mer Cottages.
AFEW ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

paper still seen we'll preserved in old farm
houses, the next step was the buff holland
now sacred to kitchen premises, then th'
gray linen and the dazzling white rollel
blind. which still puts the eyes out with it
high light in glaring room. Next fashion
in the metropolis took daring flight, ant
red parlor blinds shone down Fifth avenue
for season, and vanished to quarters i'm
possible to polite acquaintance. They suited
too well the tastes of gambling dens and for
tune-tellers. The sober elegance of the soft
natural Holland, embroidered in Byzantine
colors on the lower border, was the bes
style, and always will be good.
This year the striped linen blinds refect
foreign taste, and are very pretty for coun
try houses in the leaf-green and fax stripe
the cool, bright blue and white, or crimson
and mixed white beside the twilled tape
stripes in unbleached gray and white. The
color stripes give subdued hveliness to a
long, dim summer sitting room, or, as house.
keepers say, they furnish a room well. In
stead Of hemming the sides, narrow silk
| binding is stitched on and pressed very fat,
which adds finish and runs better on the
roller Plain hens for the lower edge are
preferred to fringe, which curls and looks
shabby.
THEY LAST WELL.
These heavy linen blinds are not sup
posed to need washing or renewal under
eight or ten years. A pair of unbleached
linen, which had been hanging in windows
for five years, showed no need of refreshing.
Practically, with the attentive care due
good furnishings, they never call for renovat-
ing. A soiled curtain or chair or broken fur
niture is witness against the breed
ing of family. In English country houses
suits of furniture 300 years old are shown in
good keeping. and pieces exhibited at the Gen.
tennial festival, quite as old, were in better
case than modern sets after six years
use. Perhaps when we can afford things in
really good finish and design we will perforce
The taste for tapestry and luxurious wall
hangfngs Is upon this country, extravagant and
unsanitary and unsatisfactory as such things
are. In one Of those artist dens of the bric-a-
brac shops wich educate people into this sort
of spurious luxury, / heard an ambitious lad +,
looking at the velvet-lined walls, say to hi s
mother. "Why can't we have our house lik 9
thisf" Why indeed, can't people on $500, to
S. 600 year, cover their walls with green or
purple velvet at Sl3 a yardY What should they
want it for if they could afford itf
ONLY FIT FOR SHOW.
House decorators do not recommend fabrics
of any kind for walls on any ground except
that of expense and show. Velvet and tapes
try harbor NO end of dust, and dust invites in
sects. Heavy fabric deadens sound so that ir
is next to impossible to have good music in
hese padded rooms and it makes the air stutfy
dead and depressing. Common houses are well
nigh intolerable with their turcoman
curtains and portieres which hold stale
air of yesterday in their folds, and forbid the
free passage of fresh breath. Fashion by way
Of compromise, hangs its walls with panels Of
Bohemian tapestry. woven of dyed Gotten in
the panels of old designs, hawking parties, bat
ties or court scenes, very well represented In
rich dark coloring, which would drive sensi-
tive person to suicide with its somber effect,
however after our cheerful home surround
ings The cotton tapestry is not prey to moths,
does not csst over $50 panel, or require man
damp, mold or buffalo bug, as wool or velvet
does. In the large houses of New York trusty
men go the rounds every week, open the rugs,
to brush and beat for moth. Your butler at
$40 week and housekeeper at $50, can't be ex-
pected to look after such matters and see that
any OF the 20 house servants do it.
SOME ARTISTIC EFFECTS.
The new artistic sense rejects these cum
brous follies for simple homes. Tapestry
would do for facing coarse brick and mortar
walls. in times when people of degree did not
mind being overrun with vermin under their
magniicence. Modern taste fills its panels
with painted tapestry, which closely resembles
the woven, and is free from its disabilities.
The demand is for washable surfaces on walls,
If not nncrusta with Its sprawly decorations.
then the tile-fnished paper, which washes
with sponge. or painted plaster in delicate,
cheerful Japanese designs of fruit blossoms,
reeds and flying birds, or at least wall paper Of
quality which will bear a coat of white shellac
varnish, like eggshell finish. The finest finish
to any wall. and most lasting. is given by white
of egg. in which the Italian masters painted
their great frescoes, and found their own eggs
when Popes and princes were too stingy to pay
for them.
The summer cottages are falling out with the
tesselated hardwood carpets, as they are
called. In our dry hot air the blocks shrink,
warp and in dog days swell again till they are
out of place. Then Bridget's treatment does
not agree with wood, and the general antique
effect of grimy oak and butternut is depressing
and it is not always easy to get man from
ate, sagacious folk fell back on well laid,
painted floors, in oak-brown, chestnut, Van
dyke brown or terra Gotta, done in oil, with a
coating Of thin shellac after the last of paint,
for gloss. This gives floor which will wear
and look as well as q waxed floor, unless
special pains are taken with the latter. The
o olive check. are Favored rather than the large %
figured mattings, and bamboo rattan and
splint or rush furniture supersedes all other
for summer. though people acquire liking for
these springy, clean, Light chairs and lounges
through the year.
PRETTY INNOVATIONS.
The gay Viennese tables and cabinets, in
light color. painted with bouquets and var
nished like lacquer, gomwell with rattan, for of
all linconvenient, "wobbly" things. the rattan and
other woven tables are the worst. Bright blue
and red linen, twiled or plain finish, is the ma
terial for cushions, enriched with floss embroid-
cries and short tassel fIinges of colors of the
many colored cross Stitches as a Baedad hang.
ing, and tasseed in Spanish taste. But the
bamboo fringe hangings are preferred for warm
weather. as they let the air through and mako
Then, everywhere you turn in the new cot
tages the new pierced woodwork confronts
you, much to the beneft of free ventilation.
Transoms over doors and windows, wrought
screens in Railways and pierced doors into
passages, or open panels flled with twisted
woodwork let the draught between rooms in
will be pretty much wood fligree, to the relief
of stained glass, which really tinges ones
views of life, there is so much of 1t. and that Is
SO dreadful. The portable Berlin iron fire.
places which are almost as easy to move as the
old sheet iron alright stoves, are beautiful IN
their artistic modelling. In contrast to the
glitter and nickel plate Of "parlor stoves" and
ment. Fer week and more fires have been
needed here near the coast, night and morn
ing, and have been cheerfuf all day sometimes.
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
"4lS" writes of broken nose, caused by
fall in fainting from overstudy some years
since. As she il only Is now, what sort Of
routine is it which taxes children not IN their
teens to the point Of faintingf What would be
said of q convent, workshop, religious
order which brought young brains to such ex-
haustion as our schools do without criticism?
Two weeks after the accident it was found the