If
you have gorgeous rugs and hangings, keep your walls absolutely plain.
In furnishing the Colony Club I used a ribbon grass paper in the
hallway. The fresh, spring-like green and white striped paper is very
delightful with a carpet and runner of plain dark-green velvet, and
white woodwork, and dark mahogany furniture, and many gold-framed
mirrors. In another room in this building where many chintzes and
fabrics were used, I painted the woodwork white and the walls a soft
cream color. In the bedrooms I used a number of wall papers, the most
fascinating of these, perhaps, is in the bird room. The walls are hung
with a daringly gorgeous paper covered with birds--birds of paradise and
paroquets perched on flowery tropical branches. The furniture in this
room is of black and gold lacquer, and the rug and hangings are of jade
green. It would not be so successful in a room one lived in all the year
around, but it is a good example of what one can do with a tempting wall
paper in an occasional room, a guest room, for instance.
Some of the figured wall papers are so decorative that they are more
than tempting, they are compelling. The Chinese ones are particularly
fascinating. Recently I planned a small boudoir in a country house that
depended on a gay Chinoiserie paper for its charm. The design of the
paper was made up of quaint little figures and parasols and birds and
twisty trees, all in soft tones of green and blue and mauve on a deep
cream ground.
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