Living Room Drawing Room And Library

We now return to the rooms where decoration is the rule. While always

remembering that connecting rooms must harmonize with one another in

color, individual colors may always be appropriately chosen for certain

rooms, because they express the dominant mood and character of the room

in question. Thus, for the living room or drawing room, the yellows,

oranges and golden browns, which combine the cheer of yellow and the

w rmth of red, are excellent. If a restful instead of a cheerful

quality is desired for the living room or drawing room, green may be

made the dominant hue. Yellow is a joyous tint, also a good breakfast-

room hue. It will harmonize in the living room with plain fumed oak,

willow furniture and cretonne hangings as well as with painted and

paneled ivory walls, old Chinese rugs, damask hangings and satinwood

and lacquered furniture. But furniture, bric-a-brac and walls always

must be good in line and color. For proper floor balance use a

large rug in a large living room, and several small ones in a small

one. Furniture, too, should be chosen in view of the emphasis each

individual piece has; and its relations to the room in general. The

effect of stiffness is not overcome by placing heavy pieces of

furniture askew in a room. Yet this is often done. Scale and

proportion should always dictate the choice of furniture, lamps and

pictures. Each has its place in the general decorative scheme. Red is a

hard color for the eyes. Many a red living room has been the cause of

chronic headache. Not that red need be entirely tabooed. A living room

for example, paneled in oak, with a soft red-toned Oriental rug, red

draperies, a touch of red in a stained glass window panel, and red

cushioned window seat will have far more warmth and charm than a room

whose walls are completely covered with red.



The Hall and Library.--Red, however, makes a hall seem

hospitable and full of welcome. It is also a good library color. In

halls where walls are papered or paneled with stripes or draperies rich

red may appear in the ground of an Oriental rug on the floor, and be

matched in the hue of the portieres or stair runner. With damask or

tapestry, or large-figured duplex papered hall walls, a soft-toned red

rug, with hangings and stair runner matching it, is best. The walls

should show a neutral tint, and red will dominate with pleasing effect.



In the library, in winter, with a glow from the open fire playing over

a red rug, "revealing shadowy outline of bookcases, and dim velvet

draperies, as a deep-shaded lamp throws a beam of light over the arm of

a big reading chair," red seems indeed an ideal color for the room.