Nine times out of ten the dining-room seems to be
the gloomiest room in the house. I think it should be a place where the
family may meet in gaiety of spirit for a pause in the vexatious
happenings of the day. I think light tones, gay wallpapers, flowers and
sunshine are of more importance than storied tapestries and heavily
carved furniture. These things are all very well for the house that has
a small dining-room and a gala dining-room for formal occasions as well,
but there are few such houses.
We New Yorkers have been so accustomed to the gloomy basement
dining-rooms of the conventional brown-stone houses of the late eighties
we forgot how nice a dining-room can be. Even though the city
dining-room is now more fortunately placed in the rear of the second
floor it is usually overshadowed by other houses, and can be lightened
only by skilful use of color in curtains, china, and so forth.
Therefore, I think this is the one room in the city house where one can
afford to use a boldly decorative paper. I like very much the Chinese
rice-papers with their broad, sketchy decorations of birds and flowers.
These papers are never tiresomely realistic and are always done in very
soft colors or in soft shades of one color, and while if you analyze
them they are very fantastic, the general effect is as restful as it is
cheerful.
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