Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1951)

( Continued from page 60) Happily, Joan’s family found the perfect combination. From the exterior their home appears to be a single family dwelling, and it probably was, originally. It’s a stone’s throw from Sunset Boulevard, on the side of a hill and in California Spanish style. You walk up a flight of stairs to the entrance and find that Joan’s apartment is located directly below with its own separate entrance at the side. Joan is ecstatic about her apartment, which comprises a large living room, bedroom, bath and kitchen. Her apartment already had dark green walls in the bedroom and gray walls in the living room and she loved them both. Colors were reversed in the carpeting — green in the living room, gray in the bedroom — to tie the two rooms together. Some of the furnishings came with the house, some came from her family’s apartment and a few were purchased. The arrangements and selections, however, were all Joan’s. And Joan proved a good point: With a good sense of color and taste you can put together a good room without taking any course in decorating. Besides, since you have to live in your home, it’s better that it reflect your taste. This doesn’t mean that everyone should eliminate the services of a decorator. Decorators can help you achieve the effect you want when perhaps you cannot accomplish this yourself. But Joan, with the wall and floor colors decided upon, did a fine job of decorating her rooms. It wasn’t, “I’ll take this, this and this,” but instead to her mother: “Katherine, are you going to use all those mirrors? I have a good idea.” And “Don’t you think that sofa would look good in my place?” Teen-Age Heaven Since the house was partially furnished, and the Eunson family had brought their things from New York, Joan, though young, with her sensible attitude agreed they should use the furnishings at hand as much as possible. For the few bare spots that needed filling, she bought a chartreuse love seat to go in front of a window, and a desk. THE desk is a story in itself, and one to which you homeowners should pay heed. It was an unfinished piece but Joan liked the lines and decided to finish it herself. It took her a week. Each morning, before leaving the house, she applied a coat of varnish to it. She repeated this for four mornings. On the fifth morning, she rubbed it down with steel wool, and the sixth morning, she completed the job with a rub-down of paste wax. Much of the unfinished furniture available today is well styled. To finish it, follow Joan’s procedure or use clear shellac rather than varnish, if you prefer. Joan put the desk, modern in style, on one side of her fireplace. Then, feeling something massive was needed on the other side of the fireplace, she put two black bookcases side by side. One of these cases would have been too narrow. But, together, they are important and they balance the wall arrangement perfectly. Though Joan loves her apartment, there was, in her opinion, one tiny flaw. The fireplace had no mantel. Someday, Joan vows, it’s going to get one. In the meantime, she used her imagination and painted the iron band, which outlined the fireplace opening, a bright red. So often we get a good idea but are afraid to carry it out, worry that it may not be good taste or that it isn’t “being done.” Nonsense! Your ideas may not work out as happily as you anticipated, but in trying them you learn something and your ideas get better all the time. In Joan’s case, that extra touch of red outlining the fireplace spiked the whole room scheme. Pieces that came with the house included a modern coffee table, glass-topped with a black lacquered base, three end tables of the same materials, two textured green lounge chairs and an armless red chair with shag cover. Joan flanked the fireplace with the two green chairs, the coffee table between them, in the center of the room, and tied all three together on a large, white shag rug. To offset the weight of this grouping, she placed a gray corduroy Charles of London sofa against the wall opposite the fireplace, an end table on each side, and the red chair nearby. Joan knows that a room must have balance in order to achieve harmony, not only in each grouping, but in arrangements of the groupings. Notice how she worked out the fireplace wall, with heavy objects on either side, a grouping in front, and another grouping opposite. To complete the room, the love seat is in front of the windows at one end of the room, and at the other end is a gray shag studio couch with red shag pillows. If you’re in doubt about furniture arrangement in your home, get the room measurements, and mark the outline on graph paper, using an inch to the foot. Then make a set of small paper squares to scale to represent the furniture pieces and move them around ( Continued on page 95) M c&tednutsez io compete... R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.. Winston-Salem. N. C. Enjoy the wonderful, natural flavor of king-size Cavalier — the cooler, lighter, milder cigarette. Priced no higher than other leading brands. Scores and scores of off-duty, New York hospital nurses were asked to compare CAVALIER CIGARETTES with the brand they had been smoking . . . compare them for mildness. *82% — just think of it! — 82% of the smokers interviewed said CAVALIERS are milder than the brand they had been smoking! And that included all leading brands! CIGARETTES 93