But we cannot get the workmen who will carve
panels in the old patterns. We cannot wait a hundred years for the soft
bloom that comes from the constant usage, and so our paneled rooms are
apt to be too new and woody. But we have such a wonderful store of
woods, here in America, it is worth while to panel our rooms, copying
the simple rectangular English patterns, and it is quite permissible to
"age" our walls by rubbing in black wax, and little shadows of
water-color, and in fact by any method we can devise. Wood paneled
walls, like beamed ceilings, are best in great rooms. They make boxes of
little ones.
Painted walls, and walls hung with tapestries and leather, are not
possible to many of us, but they are the most magnificent of wall
treatments. I know a wonderful library with walls hung in squares of
Spanish leather, a cold northern room that merits such a brilliant wall
treatment. The primitive colors of the Cordova leather workers, with
gold and crimson dominant, glow from the deep shadows. Spanish and
Italian furniture and fine old velvets and brocades furnish this room.
The same sort of room invites wood paneling and tapestry, whereas the
ideal room for painted walls in a lighter key is the ballroom, or some
such large apartment. I once decorated a ballroom with Pillement panels,
copied from a beautiful Eighteenth Century room, and so managed to bring
a riot of color and decoration into a large apartment.
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