The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-01-07
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFOIRMATION BUREAU
By FREDERIC J. HAsKIN, Dizpct0r.
WaShinK ton. ID. C.
NEW IDEAS IN FURNISHINGS.
We Are All Learning To Make Gun
Homes Attractive.

Homes Attractive.
Washington, D. c., JAN 4-Ihere IS
in New York a young woman with
unique profession. She is perfume
expert, whose business consists OF
the rooms of the wealthy
with precisely the proper perfumes.
A library. she explains. has an entirely
different perfume from a drawing
room, depending not so much upon
the nature of it's utility as upon It's
furnishings, color scheme and light
effects-in a word, upon its personal
ity. It remains for her to determine
what that perfume shall be-
The other day a wealthy Philadel-
phia hostess gave a benefit card party
in her home, the benefits OF which
were to go to buying things for Amer
lean soldiers For once the guests
left without a word concerning the
prize winners or the various tricks
they might have made had thelr
.artners played differently. Instead
there was an eXl-tv.r discussion con-
corning the new pertaining OF their
hostess's house. L am sure that the
bedroom was ose-geranium, one
woman said positively, but l couldn't
make out that of the drawing room
at aldo you suppose it was miSnon-
ette?"
The new perfume idea is the last
word in a long series of words on the
art of home-f furnishing, which has be-
come an art. Most of US do not care
to carry it as far as perfume for
every room, but all of us like attrac-
tive surroundings.
Only few years ago the interior
decorator was unknown. People
decorated their houses mostly accord
ing to their own individual tastes
which produced weird and uncanny
effects. Thus the average house was
considered beautiful when ornamented
with. the most flamboyant wallpaper;
wax flowers and birds behind glass
cases, pictures of the departed mem
bers of the family photographed in
their coffins; large-patterned carpets
and monstrous, intricate chandeliers.
AL. sorts and designs of furniture
were crowded into one room, and no
attention at all was paid to color. The
vail might be a mass of large blue
chrysa nthemumS and the floor mass
of red fabric daisies, but no one no
t.ced it. The science of color was
something that belonged entirely to
painters and not to the busy house
wives of the last century who did their
own baking-and half the time, their
own washing.
The reaction from this age of ugli-
ness came eventually and with con-
siderable force. People, anxious to
rectify the mistakes in color effects
they had made in the past, went to
the other extreme, choosing one color
and sticking to it Thus when your
neighbor told you he was going to re-
furnish his library. you Immediately
incurred, What color will it be?" One
year it would be red, and a few years
afterwards it would be refurnished
in green, and so on. The dining-room,
to %, was either blue or old rose or
green, the bedrooms blue or pink, the
Sitting-room usually brown.
There is no excuse for ugly mar
ti5tic homes these days Too many
books and magazines are devoted to
the subject of proper home-furnish-
ings The first thing the modern
woman considers in furnishing her
house or apartment is the background
the background of each room. The
background of room is the wall, the
ceiling, the floor, the woodwork. If
the house is one that she has built
herself she can choose her own back
grounds. She can have the kind of
wood, materials and wallpaper that
she likes.
But -uppose she rents her house or
apartment? Then, she cannot always
Choose her backgrounds-not even the
wallpaper. Fortunately, however,
most builders of new apartment
policy of papering walls in plain in
conspicuous colorS these days which
makes the problem considerably cas-
Ter. For an inconspicuous background
is necessary to the artistic arrange
ment of a room. With a plain tan or
gray wall, much can be done with a
Ar ON, but with a bright figured wall
paper it is hardly possible to get any
effect at all, fo- everything else in the
room IS Iale in contrast. For the
same reason, the floor and ceiling
should not attract undue attention to
tn emselves. Rugs of some soft plain
color are preferable, with perhaps a
border of a darker shade.
Next to the background, the mod
G n home-decorator must consider the
questions IF space and light. Is she
to furnish a large room or a small
one, g room that is flooded with warm
sunlight, or one that gets only the
cold darker light from the north She
knews that yellow. for instaice. is
color" or that it reflects light
apparently more than it re-
| ceives-so that it both Hghtens a
room and makes the objects it coIors
appear bigger than they really are.
Blue. on the other hand, is what is
termed a contracting color 1t diff
fuses less light than it receives and
| therefore tends both to darken a room
and make it appear smaller than it
actually is. Red reflects the exact
amount of light it receives and hence
tends to hold the objects which it col
ors to their natural proportions.
These are valuable facts for the
home decorator to work on. She al
least knows enough not to. furnish q
small room in blue, a dark room in
| purple, light room in white. But
| there *
well to rememb Der in regard to these
colors. Scientific experiments have
proved within recent years that every
color has its psychological effect, the
Importance of which has not yet beer
measured. 1t is known, for example
| that red has an exciting effect upor
people. that pure blue is cold, ICON.
sciously elevating," and that yellow
is as cheerful as the sunlight itself
From this it is evident that a large