If this is done, the result cannot fail to be
felicitous, and our dream of our house beautiful comes true!
Before you begin the decoration of your walls, be sure that your floors
have been finished to fulfil their purposes. Stain them or polish them
to a soft glow, keep them low in tone so that they may be backgrounds.
We will assume that the woodwork of each room has been finished with a
view to the future use and decoration of the room. We will assume that
the ceilings are proper ceilings; that they will stay in their place,
i.e., the top of the room. This is a most daring assumption, because
there are so many feeble and threatening ceilings overhanging most of us
that good ones seem rare. But the ceiling is an architectural problem,
and you must consider it in the beginning of things. It may be beamed
and have every evidence of structural beauty and strength, or it may be
beamed in a ridiculous fashion that advertises the beams as shams,
leading from nowhere to nowhere. It may be a beautiful expanse of creamy
modeled plaster resting on a distinguished cornice, or it may be one of
those ghastly skim-milk ceilings with distorted cupids and roses in
relief. It may be a rectangle of plain plaster tinted cream or pale
yellow or gray, and keeping its place serenely, or it may be a
villainous stretch of ox-blood, hanging over your head like the curse of
Cain.
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