| The custom of appropriate and harmonious | | | | furniture in our living rooms, is the amount of |
| treatment of home decorating, interior | | | | judgment and discretion displayed. Two favorable |
| decorations and suitable furniture, seems to have | | | | examples of the present fashion, representing the |
| been in a great measure abandoned during the | | | | interior of the Saloon and Drawing Room at |
| present century, owing perhaps to the | | | | Sandringham House, are here reproduced. |
| indifference of architects of the time to this | | | | How The Gather Inheritance Influenced On The |
| subsidiary but necessary portion of their work, or | | | | Home Decorations |
| perhaps to a desire for economy, which preferred | | | | There is at the present time an ambition on the |
| the cheapness of painted and artificially grained | | | | part of many well-to-do persons to imitate the |
| pine-wood, with decorative effects produced by | | | | effect produced in houses of old families where, |
| wall papers, to the more solid but expensive | | | | for generations, valuable and memorable articles |
| though less showy wood-panelling, architectural | | | | of decorative furniture have been accumulated, |
| mouldings, well-made panelled doors and chimney | | | | just as pictures, plate and china have been |
| pieces, which one finds, down to quite the end of | | | | preserved; and failing the inheritance of such |
| the last century, even in houses of moderate | | | | household gods, it is the practice to acquire, or as |
| rentals. Furniture therefore became independent | | | | the modern term goes, "to collect," old furniture |
| and "beginning to account herself an Art, | | | | of different styles and periods, until the room |
| transgressed her limits"... and "grew to the conceit | | | | becomes incongruous and overcrowded, an |
| that it could stand by itself, and, as well as its | | | | evidence of the wealth, rather than of the taste, |
| betters, went a way of its own." | | | | of the owner. As it frequently happens that such |
| Interior Conservatory Finishing | | | | collections are made very hastily, and in the brief |
| The interiors, handed over from the builder, as it | | | | intervals of a busy commercial or political life, the |
| were, in blank, are filled up from the upholsterer's | | | | selections are not the best or most suitable; and |
| store, the curiosity shop, and the auction room, | | | | where so much is required in a short space of |
| while a large contribution from the conservatory | | | | time, it becomes impossible to devote a sufficient |
| or the nearest florist gives the finishing touch to a | | | | sum of money to procure a really valuable |
| mixture, which characterizes the present taste | | | | specimen of the kind desired; in its place an |
| for furnishing a boudoir or a drawing room. | | | | effective and low priced reproduction of an old |
| There is, of course, in very many cases an | | | | pattern (with all the faults inseparable from such |
| individuality gained by the "omnium gatherum" of | | | | conditions) is added to the conglomeration of |
| such a mode of furnishing. The cabinet which | | | | articles requiring attention, and taking up space. |
| reminds its owner of a tour in Italy, the quaint | | | | The limited accommodation of houses built on |
| stool from Tangier, and the embroidered piano | | | | ground which is too valuable to allow spacious halls |
| cover from Spain, are to those who travel, | | | | and large apartments, makes this want of |
| pleasant souvenirs; as are also the presents from | | | | discretion and judgment the more objectionable. |
| friends (when they have taste and judgment), the | | | | There can be no doubt that want of care and |
| screens and flower-stands, and the photographs, | | | | restraint in the selection of furniture, by the |
| which are reminiscences of the forms and faces | | | | purchasing public, affects its character, both as to |
| separated from us by distance or death. The test | | | | design and workmanship. |
| of the whole question of such an arrangement of | | | | |