ts--The linen closet--Clothes closets--The china
closet--Closet tightness--Closet furnishings--Care of closets and contents

CHAPTER XII

HANGINGS, BRIC-A-BRAC, BOOKS, AND PICTURES

By SARAH CORY RIPPEY

The charm of drapery--Curtains--Portieres--Bric-a-brac--The growth of
good taste--Usefulness with beauty--Considerations in
buying--Books--Their selection--Sets--Binding--Paper--Pictures--Art
sense--The influence of pictures--Oil paintings--Engravings and
photographs--Suitability of subjects--Hanging of pictures

CHAPTER XIII

THE NICE MACHINERY OF HOUSEKEEPING

By SARAH CORY RIPPEY

Monday--Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--Friday--Saturday--House
cleaning--Preparation--Cleaning draperies, rugs, carpets--Cleaning
mattings and woodwork--Cleaning beds

CHAPTER XIV

HIRED HELP

By SARAH CORY RIPPEY

The general housemaid--How to select a maid--Questions and
answers--Agreements--The maid's leisure time--Dress and personal
neatness--Carelessness--The maid's room--How to train a maid--The daily
routine--Duties of cook and nurse--Servant's company

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A $3,400 House. . . . . . . . Frontispiece

A Unique Arrangement of the Porch

A Homelike Living Room

An Attractive and Inexpensive Hall

An Artistic Staircase Hall

An Oriental Rug of Good Design: Shirvan

Good Examples of Chippendale and Old Walnut

A Chippendale Secretary

The Dining Room

The Kitchen

The Laundry

Wedgwood Pottery, and Silver of Antique Design

A Collection of Eighteenth-century Cut Glass

The Bedroom

The Bathroom

The Drawing-room

THE COMPLETE HOME

CHAPTER I

CHOOSING A PLACE TO LIVE

Blessed indeed are they who are free to choose where and how they shall
live. Still more blessed are they who give abundant thought to their
choice, for they may not wear the sackcloth of discomfort nor scatter
the ashes of burned money.

TASTE AND EXPEDIENCE

Most of us have a theory of what the home should be, but it is stowed
away with the wedding gifts of fine linen that are cherished for our
permanent abode. We believe in harmony of surroundings, but after
living, within a period of ten years or so, in seven different
apartments with seven different arrangements of rooms and seven
different schemes of decoration, we lose interest in suiting one thing
to another. Harmony comes to mean simply good terms with the janitor.
Or if (being beginners) we have some such prosp