u would have your rooms interesting as well as beautiful, make
them say something, give them a spinal column by keeping all
ornamentation subservient to line.

Before you buy anything, try to imagine how you want each room to look
when completed; get the picture well in your mind, as a painter would;
think out the main features, for the details all depend upon these and
will quickly suggest themselves. This is, in the long run, the
quickest and the most economical method of furnishing.

There is a theory that no room can be created all at once, that it
must grow gradually. In a sense this is a fact, so far as it refers to
the amateur. The professional is always occupied with creating and
recreating rooms and can instantly summon to mind complete schemes of
decoration. The amateur can also learn to mentally furnish rooms. It
is a fascinating pastime when one gets the knack of it.

Beautiful things can be obtained anywhere and for the minimum price,
if one has a feeling for line and colour, or for either. If the lover
of the beautiful was not born with this art instinct, it may be
quickly acquired. A decorator creates or rearranges one room; the
owner does the next, alone, or with assistance, and in a season or two
has spread his or her own wings and worked out legitimate schemes,
teeming with individuality. One observes, is pleased with results and
asks oneself why. This is the birth of _Good Taste_. Next, one
experiments, makes mistakes, rights them, masters a period, outgrows
or wearies of it, and takes up another.

Progress is rapid and certain in this fascinating
amusement,--study--call it what you will, if a few of the laws
underlying all successful interior decoration are kept in mind.

These are:

HARMONY

in line and colour scheme;

SIMPLICITY

in decoration and number of objects in room, which is to be dictated
by usefulness of said objects; and insistence upon

SPACES

which, like rests in music, have as much value as the objects
dispersed about the room.

Treat your rooms like "still life," see to it that each group, such as
a table, sofa, and one or two chairs make a "composition," suggesting
comfort as well as beauty. Never have an isolated chair, unless it is
placed against the wall, as part of the decorative scheme.

In preparing this book the chief aim has been clearness and brevity,
the slogan of our day!

We give a broad outline of the historical periods in furnishing,