The Van Buren press., 1894-07-28
COLOR IN THE HOUSE.
Soft COiors and Unobtruslve Designs in
Wallpapers and Carpets.


Wallpapers and Carpets.
Contrast on broad scale can al.
ways be secured by choosing carpets
of an entirely different tone from the
wall, and this is sometimes very hap
py expedient. For instance, as con-
tract to copper -colored wall, a softly
toned green carpet is nearly always
successful. This one color, green, is
| always safe and satisfactory in a
ioor-covering, provided the walls are
not too strong in tone, and provided
also that the green of the carpet is not
too green. Certain brownish-greens
possess the quality of being in com
plete harmony with every other color.
They are the most peaceable shades in
the color world-the only ones with
out positive antipathies. Green in all
the paler tones can claim the title of
peace-maker among colors, since all the
other tints will fight with something
else, but never with green of a cor
| responding or even a much greater
strength. OF course this valuable
quality, combined with natural rest
fulness of effect, makes it the safest Of
ordinary foor-coverings.
In bedrooms with polished floors and
light walls good color effects can be
secured without carpets, but if the
floors are of pine and need covering,
no better general effect can be secured
than that of plain or mixed ingram
filing, using with II oriental hearth
and bedside rugs.
The entire second floor of d house cah
in that case be covered with carpet in
the accommodating tint Of green men
toned, leaving the various color coii-
nections to be made with differently
tinted rugs. Good pine floors well
| fitted and finished can be stained to
harmonize with almost any tint which
will harmonize with the walls.
| ! remember seaside chamber in a
| house where the mistress had great
natural decorative ability, and so much
cultivation as to prevent it's running
away with her, where the floor was
stained a transparent olive, like depths
of sea water, and here and there a
| floating sea-weed or form of sea life
family outlined within the color. In
this room, which seemed wide open
to the sea and air, even when
the windows were closed, the
walls were of faint greenish
blue, like what is called dead tur-
| quoise, and the relation between floor
and walls was so perfect that it re-
mains with me to this day as crown
| ing instance of satisfaction in color.
1t is perhaps more difficult to convey
an idea of happy choice or selection of
floor-color than of walls, because it is
relative to walls. 1t must relate to
what has already been done. But
in reeapitulation it is safe to say, first,
that in choosing color for a room, soft
and medium tints are better than posi-
tive or dark ones, and that walls should
be unobstrusive in design as well as
color; secondly, that floors, if of the
same tint as walls, should be much
darker; and that they should be made
apparent by means Of some strong
method of treatment, such as desings
in the carpet itself, or by the addition
of rugs or borders, that should un-
questionably make the relation be-
tween the two strongly felt and per-
fectly unmistakable, for it is the per-
fection of this relation of color which
makes decoration an art.-Harper
Bazar.