Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1904-12-02
WINTER HOME COMFORTS.
Making Changes In the Household
Conform With the Season.

WINTER HOME COMFORTS.
Making Changes in the Household Ia
Conform With the Season.
The really accomplished home-makeI
varies the effects of her home to meet
different seasons. Her rooms must
look fresh and newly cleaned and
flower-like in the spring; cool. Bit
empty and shadowy in summer, and
with the beginning of cool weather.
there is a striving for cheerfulness.
bright colors. warm-looking draperies
and general turning of chairs toward
the fireplace.
Curtains and rugs are brought ont
from their summer store-house, an old
chair is recovered with some warm
autumn tint, carpets are secured, wood.
work cleaned and oiled, tenders are
frightened and the little ornaments,
curios and books are wiped and put in
fresh places as though new gifts were
being shown.
And a woman who wants an air of
great coziness with but little effort
has palms and ferns about her living
rooms. Flowing plants are usually 4
great deal of trouble. They fret
about temperature and are rude about
steam heat, and whimsical about cold
draughts. But yard ferns and the
simple ''fan palms" are hardy, or
nearly so as fir trees, and require no
especial allowance of sun, just a good
drink every morning, and what an air
of charm and luxury they add.
A great deal of winter indoor COM
forts depends upon the arrangement
of rooms. With chairs facing bleak
landscapes. with touches back in
shadowy corners, as one loves them in
the summer, and with the centre table
arranged formally with a card dish
and few illustrated books and a vase
there is much chance for "homey"
afternoons and evenings.
Wherever the heat is there will the
heart be. SO it is as we'll from the start
to have the whole room face the fire
place or stove, or, cruel thought. the
radiator.
Have large table directly under
a snowy light, and have books and
magazines and work basket and
newspapers on the table, and have
chairs around all ready for use, and
couch near the fire with a piano lamp
at the head; draw heavy curtains
across the windows, and you will more
likely than not find all the family to-
gether in that room about every even
Ing.
But the arrangement of a room is
Just the final artistic touch in coziness.
No room can be attractive that is not
exquisitely hygenically clean, and
housekeepers are realizing more and
more that brushing. and busting are
not sufficient to rid room of the germ
neighbors that intrude these days in
the most exclusive homes.
Real cleanness must be antiseptic
cleanness and just broom or soap and
water won't do it.
A housekeeper of much taste and
much experience has cleaned her liv-
lng-room this fall entirely with borax
water, in different degrees of strength
and temperature.
First of all, after the rugs had been
hung out of doors to freshen, they were
rubbed over with hot borax water. two
teaspoonfuls to basin of water. The
result was as though they had been in
the hands of a professional cleaner.
Next the woodwork and hardwood
floor were wiped with the same solu-
ton, and the floor oiled, and the win
dows washed too, and rubbed dry with
tissue paper.
The value of this sort Of cleaning
was not only in the new brightness,
but in the fact that borax is a de-
stroyer of germs. According to the
best medicine authority it is a most
successful disinfectant, and yet the
use of it does not injure the most deli
cate skin.
The question of curtains was an i'm
portant one in this pretty home room.
The housekeeper quoted, preferred
ruffied muslin to all others. yet gave
them up unhesitatingly when doing
over her sitting room.
The beauty of frilled white muslin
Is naturally in it's snowy freshness. and
the price of snowy freshness is per-
petual laundry work, so she selected
soft Madras gauze, maize ground
with wide scattered figure in Indian
red and dull yellow, gaining an effect
at once cheerful and artistic, for lit
tie money and no trouble.
No woman can enjoy her sitting room
who is fretted with much care of it.
If there are heavy velvet carpets and
upholstered furniture and elaborate
wash curtains, the thought of the work
they involve cannot be obliterated by
books, or bright fires or cheerful com.
panionship.
The most permanently durable furni-
iCre, artistic and simple, is the mis-
sion design, often entirely CT wood; if
finished with leather, that of the plain
est description. And men folks will
approve of it because it is built for
comfort.