application of tasteful ornamentation to them seems amply
justified. Each is a subject in itself, as indicated by the fact that
stair building and mantel construction still remain independent trades
quite apart from ordinary joinery. For that reason two separate chapters
of this book have been devoted to these important subjects, the present
chapter being devoted to interior woodwork in general.

What the interior wood trim of the average eighteenth-century
Philadelphia house consists of is shown by accompanying photographs,
especially those in Stenton, Mount Pleasant and Whitby Hall. It is found
that the principal rooms of pretentious mansions, such as the hall,
parlor and reception room at Stenton, were sometimes entirely paneled
up on all sides. About this time, however, hand-blocked wall paper began
to be brought to America, and a favorite treatment of Colonial
interiors, including halls, parlors, dining rooms and even the principal
bedrooms of large houses, combined a cornice, or often a cornice and
frieze, and sometimes a complete entablature, with a paneled wainscot or
a flat dado with surbase and skirting, the wall between being papered.
Sometimes a dado effect was secured by means of a surbase above the
skirting, the plaster space between being left white as in the parlor at
Cliveden or in the hall and dining room at Whitby Hall, or papered like
the wall above, as in the parlor at Whitby Hall and in some of the
chambers at Upsala. Later the skirting only was frequently employed with
a simple cornice or picture mold, even in the principal rooms of the
better houses, as in the dining room at Whitby Hall. Several
accompanying illustrations show it with the dado, while a few interiors
of Mount Pleasant, Upsala and Cliveden show it with the paneled
wainscot. This general scheme constitutes a pleasing and consistent
application of the classic orders to interior walls, the dado, the wall
above it and whatever portion of the entablature happens to be employed
corresponding to the pedestal, shaft and entablature of the complete
order respectively. In a room so treated the dado becomes virtually a
continuous pedestal with a base or skirting and a surbase above the die
or plane face of the pedestal. Usually this surbase is molded to
resemble the upper fascia or the complete architrave of the various
orders. Again it may be hand-carved with vertical flutings, continuous,
as in the parlor at Upsala, or in groups of three or