Radio digest (1922)

66 cheap and unauthentic early American, Queen Anne, Georgian, and so forth, that I want to warn everyone against. They are in bad taste and are making our homes standardized and uninteresting. The clever homemaker will avoid these, selecting instead the things that suit her personality and the personality of her apartment." THE first thing to do. according to Miss Barrett's advice, is to look about your room — or house — and study the setting carefully. Do you feel the atmosphere you have created fits your personality? Does it spell you, so that at the first glance one would know you live there? If not. let's change it. You have some favorite color, for instance, that always creeps into your clothes. That color suits you. it adds to your charm. Where is it in your home? Put it there: make it the background color. Now. what about the other colors? Do they harmonize? If you are not quite sure. Miss Barrett advises you to invest a few cents in a color card, which are sold in paint shops and art departments. Now, about the placing of the furniture. Does it make sense? Does it have meaning? The most comfortable chair, the one you burrow into when vou want to read, should be placed so that the daylight pours all around it. Take it out of the dark corner at the windowless side of the room and see if it won't look just as well near one of the windows. The couch or divan, on the other hand, can go on the opposite side, where it will be out of the sun's glare when you want to rest. Keep small tables near chairs, so that one doesn't have to jump up every time he wants a cigarette, a magazine, or some place to set a glass. Give the most conspicuous place to your most prized possession; put your desk in a quiet corner where you can work undisturbed. The chairs should be grouped in a friendly manner — not so far away from each other that guests have to lean uncomfortably forward to hear what you are saying at the other side of the room. Now. let us take into consideration the nicknacks scattered about on tables and shelves. Clear spaces are restful; many small objects distract the attention. There are only two reasons for the inclusion of small, dust-gathering articles in the decorative scheme — sheer beauty or usefulness. "A beautiful ornament, something so exquisite that it quite takes the breath away, deserves a place all to itself, enhanced by a carefully chosen background," says kiss Barrett. If you have nothing that deserves this distinction, let there be harmony and reason in the objects you have on display. Again, express your own personality. ASH TRAYS, cigarette boxes, and other useful things should be sparingly used for decorative purposes, and they must always harmonize with the general feeling and color scheme. Keep the overflow in a handy drawer. Empty vases are sad things that should be hidden away, but flowers, fresh and fragrant, are the most charming decoration for any room. Not just any old flower in any old vase, but carefully chosen blossoms, daintily arranged in Who Killed Dubronsky? Swamped with a flood of "last chapter" theories the judges were unable to give a decision as to winners of this contest this month. The prizes will be awarded and winners announced in the AUGUST RADIO DIGEST the proper holder. Artificial flowers must be fresh and true to nature if they are to be used, and then just a few in an appropriate bowl, used to brighten up some dark corner, are enough for any home. The question of lighting is, of course, of paramount importance. Ceiling fixtures, chandeliers particularly, are usually superfluous, except possibly in the diningroom and large reception rooms. In the average room, wall brackets are the only stationary fixtures necessary — and in the smartest homes today these are done away with, too, in favor of lamps, and candles for the dining table. Avoid all garish, overdecorated fixtures and lamps. "The plainer the smarter" should be the byword of every home-maker in everything she does. Attractive lamps, in every conceivable color, shape, material and style can be purchased inexpensively, everywhere, today. Both bases and shades can be made at home by the clever home-maker. Walls come next in Miss Barrett's inventory-taking. Look about and study yours carefully. Is the color restful, bright and clean? If the walls are paneled, is the furniture placed carefully to avoid ugly lines? If they're papered, is the design a worthy background for your furnishings? If you are not entirely satisfied, visualize what the walls should be to make the picture you are trying to create harmonious and colorful. If you do not care to go to the expense of professional labor, you can remove old paint or paper and redecorate the walls quite easily, yourself. AND NOW comes one of the things Miss Barrett feels strongest about. I wish you could have been with us to see how sincere she was when she said, "If your pictures mean nothing to you, take them off the walls at once. Better a bare wall than one hung with a heterogeneous collection of prints, lithographs and paintings that awaken no response in you. Expensive 'art' is no excuse. Throw it out, too, if you don't feel a little happier for seeing it there." Here's the way to get your pictures. Go out into the highways and byways — study the pictures you see on display in shop" windows and galleries. When at last you find one that you zcant to own, make it yours by hook or crook. You'll find an amazing collection of inexpensive French and Japanese prints, etchings, dry points and mezzotints, colorful illustrations of all sorts, among which there will be some you will want to live with. Buy them, have them correctly framed, and then hang them carefully in the places you feel they belong. Don't worry about the "Tightness" of your choice. If your pictures please you. they are "right" for you. Now, let's sit down quietly and contemplate the windows with Miss Barrett. She says: "Study the view from each room, because upon it depends the sort of draperies you want. First, the outer hangings; whether they are of silk, cretonne, glazed chintz, or any other material, do they have a direct relation to the rest of the room? Keep these rules in mind: A dark floor and rug, and then more and more light as you ascend to the ceiling: the walls lighter than the floor but the window hangings darker than the walls, without too much contract." IF the window is short, a valance placed about a foot above it and just hiding the top will make it look larger. If it is so huge that it dwarfs the room, a deep valance front the top of the window will shorten it. If the proportions are good, the most deco rative hangings are two straight pieces of material, sewed onto rings, hanging from an ornamental rod, using no valance or edging. If the draperies are arranged on a pull cord, you can do away with window shades, which are ugly and collect a great deal of dust. "If you have a superb view from the window," Miss Barrett continued, "don't use glass curtains, but let the hangings suffice. Then, be sure to keep the panes spotless. If there is no worthwhile view, you'll need window curtains, of some soft, monotone material, many shades lighter than the hangings, though dead white is seldom attractive." The very prettiest glass curtains I have ever seen are those Miss Barrett used in the modern livingroom at the Radio Home-Makers Club. They are made of fine celonese voile, as soft and shimmery as the finest silk. One large, straight piece, about two and a half times the length of the window, is folded over a narrow rod at the top of the window, and then shirred right below the rod. Take one side and draw it down tautly, gathering it on a rod attached to the window sill. The other side is gathered in the same fashion to the other side of the rod. giving a lovely criss-cross effect. I recommend this treatment with all my heart, for it really adds beauty to the room. LAST of all. I want to talk to you about something that means a great deal to both Miss Barrett and me — and you. too, I hope. Books!!! To give a room that atmosphere of lived-in-ness, which Miss Barrett is so emphatic about, nothing is so helpful as books — adding color to the room from built-in open shelves: in a trough under an end table at the side of a comfortable chair; between a pair of handsome bookends on a divan table. Don't buy your books "by the yard," according to the colors of their backs. Consider the contents only and then set them in place haphazardly, mixing up the various colors so that no one color will dominate. Books you love, books you want other people to love are the sort you want around you. "Probably the most thumb-worn volumes in my house," Joan Barrett told me, are two copies of When We Were Very Young, those charming poems A. A. Milne wrote for his little son, Christopher Robin. There's a copy — where do you think? — stuck down between the cushion and arm of my favorite chair, in the livingroom. and one copy on the night table next my bed. That's 'my' book and it has crossed the ocean several times with me." I tell you this little story just as Joan told it to me because I want to convey to you the atmosphere of a real, livedin home she created for me by telling this story. A book down in the side of a chair — just that seems to reveal her home to me. When you have books around, your friends will brouse among them; they reveal you like nothing else will, they help to make friends and they add a touch of reality and beauty to a room which nothing else can impart. Next month Miss Conradt-Eberlin will tell of her chat with the beauty experts and why they believe personal beauty is as important to the home-maker as beauty in the home. In the meantime, if you have any questions to ask regarding your decorating problems, write Miss Conradt-Eberlin in care of Radio Digest, and she will pass your letters along to Miss Barrett to receive professional advice.