To be successful, a house must be furnished in absolute harmony with the
life within its walls. A small house does not need an elaborate
drawing-room, which could only be had at the expense of family comfort;
a simple drawing-room would be far better, really more of a living-room.
In a large house one may have as many as one wishes.
A house could be furnished throughout with Chippendale furniture and
show no sign of monotony of treatment. The walls could be paneled in
some rooms, wainscoted in others, and papered in others. This question
of paper is one we have taken in our own hands nowadays, and although it
was not used much before the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, there are so many lovely designs copied from old-time stuffs
and landscape papers, which are in harmony with the furniture, that they
are used with perfect propriety. One must be careful not to choose
anything with a too modern air, and a plain wall is always safe.
The average hall will probably need a pair of console tables and
mirrors, some chairs, Oriental rugs, a tall clock if one wishes, and, if
the hall is very large and calls for more furniture, there are many
other interesting pieces to choose from. A hall should be treated with a
certain amount of formality, and the greater the house, the greater the
amount; but it also should have an air of hospitality, of impersonal
welcome, which makes one wish to enter the rooms beyond where the real
welcome waits.
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