The Bridgeport times and evening farmer. (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1918-1924, 1918-02-18
LIGHT NECESSARY
IN The CITIES
FOR CHEERINESS

Light must pour in the windows
of a home from earliest sunrise 10
sunset if the home is. to be a cheerful
one. What matter if a carpet fades?
What matter if the wall paper turns
gray because the sun shines too often
upon it? Why should one make
gloriously large windows and then
cloud them over with heavy curtains
that shut out the health giving sun
light and shroud the room in gloom?
says writer in the Touchstone
Windows should be treated as #
they were pictures and the curtains
about them as a frame. No picture
hung upon a wall painted by man
can rival in beauty those created by
nature, which will glorify the walls
of any room, If permitted. Philoso-
pliers tell US that the value of room
is the space within it and that the
beauty of a house is that which comes
in through the windows. So let win
dows be broad and high, letting in
sun from every angle of the compass
and let these windows be framed sim
ply with materials suitable to the
| type of house.
dows should be washable, simple in
color and design, preferably of flow
ers or birds, or even those quaint pat
terms that have touch of humor in
them. Cheerfulness should be the
aim in country house window franz
ings. For city windows a little more
Formally is desired.
Here an entirely different problem
confronts the interior decorator, for
while a country house can safely push
the curtains of it's windows far to one
side to let in the view of distant vale
and mountains, the city house win
dows must be curtained to conceal
the mournful sight of ugly brick
walls.
Mans ingenuity has created many
delightful solutions of curtaining the
city house, but none of them perhaps
is more decorative than that idea
borrowed from the Japanese Of re-
ducing the height of a too tall win
dow by panelling the top with lattice.
Another interesting treatment of
the city window is to make a shade
that pulls up from the bottom and
another one that pulls down from
the TOP. so that a space about foot
| wide can be left between the two,
according to the height of the win
dow. This sounds like a very simple
thing, and yet the effect is extremely
decorative. The Japanese understand
the decorative value of panels when
properly balanced, and this arrange
ment of shades gives the house
keeper a chance to make panels
across her windows of many different
proportions.
To carry out the suggestion of
Japanese treatment, which, by the
way, is far from that used in Japan,
is to pull the side curtains taut top
and bottom, giving the effect of a
panel Of silk on either side and across
the top of the window. In the upper
corners of the panels small square of
brocade or design of any material
could be introduced. The effect OF a
window treated in this manner is al
most classic in its outline, and en-
ployed in certain kinds of simple
homes is extremely decorative.
Quite a different treatment for city
windows, when an ugly view must be
: shut out, is to hang several folds Of
chiffon tints so that the effect is light
! and airy, somewhat suggestive of a
vibrant sky. These folds of chiffons
= do not hide the light, but do shut
} out the ugly neighborhood wall and
l the window conveys an impression of
: charming outdoor color and seems
f alive rather than dead.