The Beauty of the Home

No two people differ on this: that beauty is a fundamental factor of happiness and contentment. We adore a beautiful flower, we love a beautiful face, we are gladdened when we see a beautiful view, and our souls are at ease when we put on elegant, beautiful clothes. It is fitting, then, that we take special care to make our homes beautiful and attractive, for it is within their walls that we spend the greater part of our lives. Here, then, we review some of the elements of beauty in the home.

You may be one of those whom fortune has favored, granted a natural gift for knowing which colors go together. But there are those among us who lack this natural gift, and so it is important that we find some guide to help us in choosing harmonious colors.

And you can find, madam, the guide you need in many things, if you turn your attention to them. Suppose, for example, that you have decided to do over the reception room again this year, and that you have chosen a new kind of patterned curtains. Look at the pattern closely and carefully: you may notice many kinds of shades and colors that you did not expect to see, and that do not show themselves to the eye at a mere passing glance. And you may find that the colors used in the room's curtains guide you to all the colors you need and to the ways of arranging and distributing them: pale colors for the wall surfaces and the ceiling, a color darker than that for the floor of the room, and gay, clear colors for the covers of the chairs and the cushions and the rest.

Yet the choice of colors is a matter on which people differ, and the best colors for your home are the colors that please you and set your soul at ease.

You may choose, madam, the color you love for the bedroom or for the bathroom. The color you choose for the bedroom may be rose-red, and for the bathroom, blue. But the choosing does not stop there. For example: do you want all the bedroom's walls and its ceiling, and the designs and curtains in it, to be rose-red? That would without doubt be an ugly sight. You must therefore use other colors in addition to the rose-red. Pale blue, for instance, or gray, or white — or all three together — differ from the rose-red, but their difference is quiet and gentle. So the rose-red bedroom will not be rose-red at all; it will rather be a room whose most conspicuous color is red.

And if we suppose that you want a blue room, you will find that blue suggests coolness in the room where it is used, just as loud colors suggest heat and warmth. Therefore the room in which red is used successfully must also contain a sufficient measure of the cool colors, to temper the sharpness of the red. But the cool color must not be so noticeable that it hides the red and keeps it from showing — and here begins the problem of arranging colors.

There is no doubt that the colors of rooms have a great psychological effect, especially if the room is one of those in which we work for a long part of our day — the kitchen, for example. And in choosing the colors of the kitchen walls we must observe an important point. We know that dark colors hide the dirt that clings to them, and so some may think that the best means of preserving the kitchen's tidiness and cleanliness is to paint its walls in dark colors. But this is the very error and the source of the trouble, for the rules of health and cleanliness require us to clean away that dirt, not to work at hiding it. And how can we manage that if we cannot see it? From this you see, madam, that the colors of the kitchen walls must be light and soft, so that you can see whatever dirt clings to them, and so that there may be harmony between those colors and the blazing light that the sun's rays give us in our country.

Pictures are counted among the things that have a great effect on the beauty and luster of the home. Most ladies are fond of adorning the walls with beautiful pictures, and in this they are right. Beautiful pictures, hung in suitable places, lend a room a luster and beauty beyond its own luster and beauty. But pictures often become a cause of a room's ugliness and the loss of its luster, when a great number of them are hung on the wall. For a room whose walls are clothed in pictures becomes a picture gallery more than a room. Then too, a profusion of pictures in a room tires the eye and suggests anxiety and unease. Add to this that a picture, if it is not set in a well-made frame and tightly sealed from behind, may become a fertile breeding-ground for all sorts of insects, especially in the summer season. So if you wish, madam, to adorn the room with pictures and to create in it a calm, restful atmosphere, you must choose your pictures with care and arrange them on the walls in a suitable, artistic way.

And do not forget, madam, that the place in which flowers are set has a great effect on their beauty. Deep-colored flowers are not to be placed in corners with little light, for they cannot be seen; only flowers of light color suit such places, so that they may be seen.

There must also be harmony between the color of the place on which the vase is set and the color of the flowers. White carnations, for example, are not to be placed on a white cloth. And the color of the vase must be considered in relation to the flowers placed in it: carnations, for example, are placed in a vase of white crystal. Nor is it wise to set a large mass of flowers inside a small room, for this makes the room look smaller in size than it is. And it is essential to observe the proportion between the color of the flowers and the furniture and its style. For example, the sunflower, whose color is intensely yellow: if it is placed in a room whose furniture is of oak — the wood nearest in color to yellow — these flowers look weak; whereas if they are placed in a room whose furniture is of walnut, they appear in their full strength and their loveliest form. The places on which flowers are set differ according to their position in the room. If the vase is set in a place specially prepared for it in the wall, the viewer sees it from one side only; in this case the flowers in the vase are arranged to face one way only. But if the vase stands in a place where the eye sees it from all sides, then the flowers must be arranged in the form of a circle.

And if the flowers have short stems — like pansies and violets and the rest — only a vase of little height suits them; or they may be placed in a flat, wide-based vessel in the form of a dish, which is filled with water and the flowers arranged floating in it; or they may be placed in vases with holes in the bottom to hold the stems firm so that they do not slip. Here the stems must be immersed in water.

From this you see that the rule is fineness of arrangement, not richness of appearance or luxurious furniture. A flat of a limited number of rooms, ordered upon an artistic taste, is a thousand times better than a spacious palace in whose ordering there is no trace of taste.