Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-03-08
y y y = y y y = y = y y = y
y THE TASK OF y
CHOOSING WALLPAPERS. =

J
= THE TASK OF y
CHOOSING WALLPAPERS. =
= y y = , y y y = y = = = = =
You plead with the agent TO have
the house papered The paper on It
now is hideous. you rage. You fairly
weep when you tell how absolutely
horrid all your furniture looks with
such paper Nothing harmonizes, you
vail
The agent is cynical He doesn't see
much in papering a house in the
cause Of harmony. However. he very
grudgingly says, after awhile, that if
the paper is damaged in any way. pos
sibIy he can get the owner to repair,
Beauty in itself has no bearing but
such sordid matters as soiIed or dis
/ figured paper will be considered.
You tell him you have noted various
hicks in the paper, but since the wind
in this quarter, you don't tell him
that these have been half the eye
sores, that the color and designing
have been. However. since he pre-,
/ fers hicks to harmony you give him
hicks in plenty, and at last get his
consent to have the papering done
with the further concession that you
will choose the paper.
How happy you are! You know now
that the house will be papered real ar
tistically You think how much pref
tier your rugs and upholstering will
| look with proper backgrounds. You
| sit in each room with a meditatiye air
and study out treatments and lights,
And when you sally forth to choose
the paper you have colors and designs
for every room at your tongues end.
You do not imagine it will be bit
of trouble to find what your want,
for your wants are so simple. To inn
press the clerk, you tell him some
thing about exposures and treatments
and 50 on. But he doesn't listen. With
flourish, he gets out a roll of wall
paper, and as he unrolls it, says:
This is one of the very latest pat
terms; it's selling tremendously. anG
rolls out a pattern of tremendous red
roses.
Those roses! Yet, he must be sell
ing lot of it. You have seen those
roses in every house you looked at
You tell him firmly you don't want
those roses.
He rolls it up grudgingly and goes
for another roll with a sigh that says,
I'm up against a crank" This time
he filings startling art nouveau pat
tern in greens and reds. You tell
him you don't want anything quite so
striking, and he signs louder tlan
ever. He unrolls pattern after pattern
but the reds are all too red and the
greens all too green, the blues too
blue. You go forth to another shop
and to a third and fourth You fl.
/ many tdhS q GOlIGCIlOll VI SCl dpS VI
paper to take home to see if they
match. They don't match the pink
that seemed just right in the shop be-
comes Of salmon hue alongside the
pink damask-coyered furniture. The
blue, in the dark dining room, be-
comes indigo. Even the cheerful yell
low takes on a brassy tinge in the
green and gold atmosphere of your
guest room
Where is the delicate pink of your
imagination which you wanted for
your own bedroom, the sunshiny yell
low for the hall with its north light
the blue that looked just right with
the mahogany furniture of the dining
room? Where are they, you ask dis
/ consolately, as you wander and wan
der and retreat precipatately from
shop after shop recalling after you
have entered that some OF their very
wallpapers are even now bullying from
your bag?
AT last, in desperation, you take a
tapestry paper in which are frightful
minglings of blue and green for your
living room, though you know there
should be CLINT of old rose instead
Of that awful blue, to harmonic with
your furniture. You take a pink with
roses, yes, actual roses, for your own
bedroom. You YEARLY pick out a
poppy paper for the guest room, and
when the next day the clerk phones
that they haven't enough of the blue
paper you chose for the kitchen and
will yellow do, you franticalIy say yes.
anything will do; only don't ask me
to come and look at any more papers.
And within you is born a great SYM
pathy for all who must choose papers
for the house.
BARBARA BOYD.
NIGSTnN