Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-09-10
DECORATION CRAZES.
Most Housekecpcrs Have Had Their Head
Turned by Them.

Most Housekerpcrs Have Had Their Heads
Turned by Them.
1t was really an advance in education
when we discovered that neutral colors,
soft tints and rougher surfaces were
moro harmonious and beautiful for the
walls of room than glaring white
paint, gorgeous paper hangings and
startling fresco: but straightway we
must finish our walls in rough plaster,
whose surface held dust and smoke, and
was wholly incongruous with the APP
pointments Of comfortable home.
revolt against the absurdly high cell
ings, which made difficult the warming
and lighting of our houses brought us
"a return to the low-ceiled rooms with
heavy Eainscotiug aud massive beams
overhead, whore our grandmothers' can
dies shed an Intellectual ray. We can
not reform the floral architecture of our
homes without adopting the walled
| porches, small high windows and other
! devices which owed their existence TO
! the presence of hostile Indians and the
! tax on window lights. We even ape the
! sanitary evils which resulted from ig-
! norance of the laws of health, and paint
! mould and mildeW on our shingles, and
| imitation moss upon our roofs that fair
| iy cbills one with it's uncanny green
ness. We are not satisfied with curtail-
ing the sphere of the carpet, abolishing
it's tightly nailed edges with their pain
full conformity to the contour Of the
walls, but we must dispense with 1T al
together and slide and shiver on our
! polished floors unless we can afford to
! strew them promiscuously with rugs of
all shapes and colors.
We protest against tho elaborate finn
siness of our furniture, anc we are made
to adopt not simply the solidity of our
earlier days, but its uncomfortable angu-
1aritg We begin by attempting to break
up the ghaStly whiteness of our glisten-
ing table service and end by replacing
washable linen with silk, satin, en-
broidery and lace, which are completely
out of place for such uses. We discover
that a bit OF rich stuff dropping in
heavy folds over the arm Of q dark,
carved chair, has picturesque effect
snd straightway, pictures, chairs, sofas,
tables Snd mantels are draped and ban
dage3, and Uttered with absurd scarfs
and ribbons and decorat:ye nightmares.
Our children are charming IA the
straight, simple, long-skirted dresses
and coats Of generations gone, but we
must follow our craze until re load
their poor little heads with enormous
hats and bonnets, heavy with piled ut
ribbons and feathers, and replace thelT
long, sensible stockings with socks that
leave their pretty legs uncovered, that
they may lock, forsooth, like Greena'
way picture. One ~yoman's ingenuity
constructs a pretty trinc, and from
Maine to Florida it repeats itself - 81
Imaginable variations, until soiled and
furnished, Lcttered and disfigured, it is
reluctantly banisheG from sight Call
il you can, the roll of the decorative
4rlaniaS that have successfully s"ei..
through the land; and few of us bn
must hang the head at some awful
memory of paint, bronze, silGings ol
embroidery. Fortunate, indeed, have
been our homes, il theis names arc no
legion. Home Magazine.