ARTISTIC AND IDEAL ROOMS

These rooms are hardly parlor or sitting-rooms — that is, they follow no especial idea in regard to furnishing, but every article is bought with an idea to its place and future worth, thus successfully embodying an artistic and ideal home. As you enter through the hall into the parlors you see beautiful soft rugs covering the two parlor floors, front and back parlor. Outside of the rug for the space of a foot or more the wood has been stained and polished. Scattered around the room are easels of wood, plainly made and put together, serving as a support for the picture only, and not the picture serving only as a medium to show off the easel. The mantel is filled with bric-a-brac, odd china and pictures. Between the doors is a large lake gull, suspended by an invisible wire and swaying in the air with poised wings as if ready for a flight. Book-cases are fitted in each side of the mantel, made only of shelves with end pieces, in as simple a fashion as possible, and filled with books from the floor upward to the top of the mantelpiece, which is as high as the bookcase extends.

Among the quaint things in this pretty house is a spinning-wheel in one corner, just discernible through the door ; at the farther end of the hall is one of the tall, old-fashioned clocks, and over the back mantel- piece is an ebonized cabinet the length of the mantel and nearly to the height of the ceiling, filled with odd and quaint pieces of china.

Across the front of the bay window are lace curtains, gracefully draped and suspended from poles from which drops a straight valance of rich material with handsome fringe, and which is repeated in the mantel, chair and table draperies. Above the front mantel is an ebon- ized cabinet filled with china and brass ornaments. On a bracket in one corner is an old china tea pot, ever and ever so many years old, and on the wall near it a plate hung on silver hooks. The easels are tied with bright bows and loops of ribbon, and fastened on one of the bam-

160 HOUSE FURNISHING.

boo-rods is a bunch of pea-fowl feathers. The quaintly shaped rattan, bamboo and willow chairs have bright bands of ribbon interlaced through the openings, and tied here and there in gay knots and ends.

In one corner stands a work-basket looking as if fair fingers had left it but a few moments before ; one or two comfortable looking ottomans, and a camp-stool foot-rest. Over one high-backed easy chair is a bolster to make the head lie more comfortably; on the low divan couch an afghan thrown across for the master to draw over the feet while reposing after a weary day of labor ; between the parlors and dining- room are portieres through which one catches a glimpse of the side- "board with niches and shelves filled with large vases, odd pitchers, and quaint china, but with not a glimpse of silver — that glittering material now being banished from the side-board.

On one side of the fireplace is a pile of cushions to sit upon, in lieu of an ottoman, of which there are several scattered here and there throughout the room. These things do not seem overcrowded, though they may seem so to read of them, for the parlors are large, everything seems to fit into place, and into the place especially designed for it.

Here is embodied the spirit of home. From the time you cross the threshold you feel at ease ; rooms well Ht, not darkened with draperies, and yet such cool, shadowy, restful light. The beautiful soft rugs, the easels and bookcases with their rich, dark woods, give an air of richness and subdued luxury. It is not so much the wealth here as the good taste displayed that makes this home so charming. Easy comfortable chairs of willow, rocking chairs made to rock in and not to sit up straight without any comfort to tired, wearied bodies ; a divan couch with soft pillows — all making a place of comfort instead of one to be tortured in.

This home can be easily copied by those who do not want any " set " parlor, libraiy or sitting room, but want the three combined, as is so often desirable in the ordinary city house. If the house can be well heated in winter, it is an improvement to take off the doors that lead from hall to parlors or dining room, and in their places put heavy por- tieres. These give the effect of the whole house being one room, and in going up the stairs or through the hall one gets a glimpse of all the rooms near or beyond. These portieres in a small house make it appear very much larger, besides giving a luxurious effect to the whole house.