Lucky is the man or woman of taste who has no inherited eyesores, which, because of association, must not be banished! When these exist in large numbers one thing only remains to be done: look them over, see to what period the majority belong, and proceed as if you wanted a mid-Victorian, late Colonial or brass-bedstead room.
To rearrange a room successfully, begin by taking everything out of it (in reality or in your mind), then decide how you want it to look, or how, owing to what you own and must retain, you are obliged to have it look. Design and color of wall decorations, hangings, carpets, lighting fixtures, lamps and ornaments on mantel, depend upon the character of your furniture.
It is the mantel and its arrangement of ornaments that sound the keynote upon first entering a room.
Conventional simplicity in number and arrangement of ornaments gives balance and repose, hence dignity. Dignity once established, one could afford to be individual, and introduce a riot of colors, provided they are all in the same key. Luxurious cushions, soft rugs and a hundred and one feminine touches will create atmosphere and knit together the austere scheme of line the anatomy of your room. Color and textiles are the flesh of interior decoration.
In furnishing a small room you can add greatly to its apparent size by using plain paper and making the woodwork the same color, or slightly darker in tone. If you cannot find wallpaper of exactly the color and shade you wish, often it is possible to use the wrong side of a paper and produce exactly the desired effect.
In repapering old rooms with imperfect ceilings it is easy to disguise this by using a paper with a small design in the same tone. Ret perfectly plain ceiling paper will show every defect in the surface of the ceiling.
If your house or flat is small you can gain a great effect of space by keeping the same color scheme throughout that is, the same color or related colors. To make a small hall and each of several small rooms on the same floor different in any pronounced way is to cut up your home into a restless, unmeaning checkerboard, where one feels conscious of the walls and all limitations. The effect of restful spaciousness may be obtained by taking the same small suite and treating its walls, floors and draperies, as has been suggested, in the same color scheme or a scheme of related keys in color. That is, wood browns, beiges and yellows; violets, mauves and pinks; different tones of grays; different tones of yellows, greens and blues.
