Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1911-02-16

ono |
HONE !
TALKS
by Barbara
Choosing Wallpapers.

HW is HueUUs, yu argue. TOu fary Weep When yU teH hW bSO-
lutely horrible all your furniture looks with such paper Nothing
harmonizes, you wall
The agent is cynical. He doesn't soc much use in papering a house in
the cause of harmony. However, he grudgingly says after awhile that If the
paper is damaged in any way, possibly he can get the owner to paper Beauty
in itself has no hearing, but such sordid matters as soned or dshgured paper
will be considered.
You tell him that you have noted various hicks in the paper, but since the
wind is In tisq quarter you don't tell him that these have not been half the eye
sores that the color and designing have been. However, since he prefers hicks
TO harmony, you give him hicks in plenty, and at last get his consent to have
the paperng done, with the further concession that you will choose the paper.
How happy you are! You know nov that the house will be papered really
ardsucany. You think how much pnthier your rugs and upholseies will look
with proper backgrounds. You sit in each room with a medtatve al. and study
ut treatments and lights. And when you sally forth to choose the paper you
have colorsa and designs for every oom at your tongues end.
You do not imagine it will be a bit @. trouble to find what you want for
your wants are 81 simple. To impress the clerk, you tell him something about
exposures n treatment IN S 10 Il. But he doesn't listen. Win a hour1sh ne
gets out a roll of wallpaper, and as he unrols it he says: "This Is ne of the
very latest patterns. It's selling tremendously" and out rolls a pattern of
tremendous roses.
Those roses! Yes, he must be selling a lot OF it, You have seen those
roses In every house you looked at You tell him firmly you don't
want roses.
He rolls it up grudgingly and goes for another roll with a sigh that says,
Pm up against a crank" This time he filings out a startling art nouveau pat
tern in greens and reds. You tell him you don't want anything quite so strik-
ing and he signs louder than ever He unrons pattern after pattern, but the
reds are all too red, the green's too green, the blues to- blue. You go forth to
another shop, and to a third and a fourth. You finally take to collecting scraps
of paper to take home to see if they match. They don't match. The pink that
seemed just right in the shop becomes of salmon hue alongside the pink of
your damaskcovered furniture. The blue, in the dark diningroom, becomes
indigo. Even the cheerful yellow takes o a brasy tnge in the green and
gold atmosphere of your guesToom.
Where is the delicate pink of your imagination which you wanted for your
own bedroom the sunshiny yellow for the hall with its north light, the blue
that looks Just right with the mahogany furniture OF the diningroom? Where
ire they, you ask dtconsolatey, as you wander and wander and retreat pre-
cpfaey 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 frisntful
minglngs Of blue and green for your Hvingroom, though you know there
should be a CLINT of old rose instead of that awful blue to harmonic with your
furniture. You take a pink, a vivid, vivid pink with roses, yes, actual roses,
for your ovs bedroom. You YEARLY pick out a poppy paper for the guestroom,
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 say frantcany yes, any
And within you is born a great sympathy for all who must choose papers
for the house.