Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-06
A SIMPLE BED ROOM
MISTAKE TO HAVE IT oVERFUR-
NISHED OR ADORNED.
Have Furniture and Hangings of 9
Kind That Will Permit Ready
Cleansing.



| Nothing in the adornments of a room is
more attractiv than lace window curtains,
but an overdressed window is like an over
dressed woman. The wise housekeeper who
thinks of the health of her family has moth
ing to cover her windows except tie binds
or shutters the carpenter put there also
a substantial shade to keep out too much
light and a pair of very thin ornamental
curtains, the handsomest she can afford
and those not too large and clumsy. One
of the most tasteful ways, indeed, of drap-
ing n windo is simply to put across it at
the top fine transparent lace valance abuot
| fifteen inches wide-that and nothing more.
| This takes off the effect of baroness, gives
| the needed touch of decoration and at the
same time leaves the window free to fulfill
the use for which windows were made-not
to hang things upon, but to let in light and
air.
The woman who overdresses her house
has always a so-called ''cozy corner"
which in her case should be called dirt
drawing corner" She has couch with a
covering that sweeps the floor like a trained
skirt. catching dust and lint. oftentimes
concealing beneath it the lamentabe lack
of sweeping. Nay-forgive unpleasant ailu-
sions-but that couch draping is occasionally
like charity, which coverS-you know what
Under that couch will be hurled old boxes,
papers and even old shoes. The couch is
showed up close and tight against the wall
lest by any chance some air get around it
to ventilate II. Nailed I'D on the wall he
hind, around and above 1t is always some
more awful dust-catching drapery 1t is
tackled so as to give it as many folds as
possible apparently that it may collect and
hold all the microbes that are going
Sometimes it hangs so month after month
! If you touch it, it showers dust upon YOU
till you sneeze. Besides having the drap-
cry upon the wall, the couch in this un-
speakable "cozy corner" frequently has a
canopy above it to shut out more air and
catch more microbes. Then the cushions
oh. those cushionsi A would-be household
authority says a couch should have at least
ten. At any rate there will always be six
or eight, and there they, too remain month
after month without renovation. Oh. the
| head emanations, the pomades, the dan
druff. the street particles. the poisonous COL
oring matter those cushions contain, the
diseased, dyspeptic breaths that have been
breathed into them and that stay there!
The woman who overdresses her house does
not renovate it very often. naturally be-
cause to do so would involve more labor
and expense than are within reach Of per-
sons of ordinary means.
The Way to Have It.
The good housekeeper never sacrifices
health to haagings. She may follow the
'cozy corner" fad If it is convenient or she
may not. She is Independent and puts her
own individuality into her home. II she
have a coy corner the couch Will be placed
in II little diagonally to the wall if pos
sible. leaving an open space behind. Ine
cover of the couch will be as rich and hand
some she can afford, but it will never
sop away down upon the floor. looking as
though it were put there to cover up things
There will always be a slight spa ce between
it and the floor. that floor will be dust
less, you may well believe.
No dust embracing canopy is over the
couch, only a ceiling, beautiful and artistic
but restful, never confusing in its decora-
lions. There will probably be no draping at
all behind this kind of couch unless il is
necessarily placed against the wall; in that
case the wall covering viii not be so large
and heavy that it cannot be taken down
frequently and be aired and have the dust
beaten out of it. By the way have Won in
your home one of those sD-called heaters"
which is exactly the instrument with which
to drive dust and loose lint out of not only
room draperes and hangings. but also rugs
and heavy dress skirts? 1t is an affair OF
branches and will last for years 1t can be
obtained at any housekeeping goods estab-
Instrumental least it ought to be.
Sunlight and Air.
7 Portieres also must be unlocked from
their fastenlngs several times a year and
thoroughly aired. summed and beaten. So
should everything in the nature of a textile
fabric that the house contains blankets,
comfortables, pillows and cushions. Moth
ing makes a sleep so sweet mattress
that has had good summing outdoors. For
this reason a mattress separate from the
spring is far better than the old-fashioned
box kind.
Upon the walls opposite and around her
cozy corner the good housekeeper has
agreeable pictures of inviting landscapes,
of flowers perhaps and beautiful laughing
children and happy lovers. No horrible Ju-
dith and the head of Holofernes of bleed
ing horses and men dying upon a battlefield
are anywhere in sight: nothing but what is
sweet, airy restful and agreeable. Neither
does the good housekeeper ever have scarfs
and drapings upon her pictures. The pic
lures themselves are there to be looked at;
they are the thing or they should not be
there; therefore no confusing scarf or hang
ing Is thrust over the corner Of their frames