Omaha daily bee., 1909-09-19

novel decorative feature that has been
created for the identifying Of homes in
recent years is q hand-painted tile fire
place facing. 1t has always been a diff
ficult matter to properly select a plain tile
or brick facing which would be In keeping
with the style of the fireplace and har-
monize with the decorations of the room.
A hand-painted tile facing, however, can
be made in any color or design. 1t is
therefore a mere matter OF a proper appli-
cation Of the artists talent upon them to
obtain complete harmony all around. The
number of designs which can be obtained
is only limited by the extent Of the artists
fancy and imagination. For a rose room,
the tile can be decorated with roses; for a
blue room, with grapes or violets; for a
yellow room with daisies; for a green
room, with a trellis or grapes or vines of
flowers with a foliage predominating; for
a brown room, with branches of colored
autumn leaves, etc. The decoration can
be a design or a picture, conventional or
unconventional. For parlor, flowers or
foliage. For dining room, game or clusters
fruits; for library or den, ocean scenes.
monks heads, inscriptions surrounded by
foliage or conventional designs; for bed
rooms flowers in the d%aintiest hues.
If it is intended to burn coal or wood in
the fireplace the proper construction of the
chimney throat and flue is very important
First, the chimney should be built higher
than the nearby roof ridges, and there
should be a separate rue for each fire
place, stove and furnace. II the chimney
is built on an outside wall 1t is best TO
have a double wall with a two-inch air
space between on the weather exposed side.
TO prevent the face brick from cracklng In
cold weather, and assure a good draught.
A fireplace well constructed should give
a fair amount OF heat for the fuel burnt
without smoking, which is not a difficult
resuldt to obtain II a few simple rules are
observed. Splayed sides to a fireplace.
reflect more heat into a room than sides
that are at right angles to the front and
back. The throat should be contracted
gradually until it is the width of the flue.
Tit throat should be as near the front as
possible and extend the full width Of the
fireplace opening, making it narrow and
long. The throat should become gradually
wider from front to rear and relatively
narrower from side to side as II approaches
the flue proper, so that at all places the
throat and flue will have the same sec
tiOnal area. The sectional area Of the
throat and flue should be one-tenth Of the
area OF the fireplace opening. The flue
beginning at the opening to the throat
should contract to the desired size directly
over the middle OF the fireplace; from there
on IT can be gradually DETECTED TO one
side, but in no case should the nue arise
directly from the side OF the fireplace,
as the draught being all on that side it
would allow the fireplace TO smoke on the
other side.
The writer was once called 10 decide
what was wrong with two fireplaces which
smoked. The remedies were simple. A
hasty investigation showed that In one
the damper when open stIl closed half the
throat In the other the ckw be-
tween the throat and outside face OF the
fireplace was eight inches thick instead
OF four, making a broad surpace against
which the smoke struck and glanced out