The Louis the Fifteenth salon in the palace of Abdul Rahim Diab. Notice how the chair, the emblem of this elegant style, contains not a single straight line. Its cover is needlepoint (Aubusson). As for the colors of this room, they are all light.
Every month, with regularity, Miss Afaf Abd al-Baqi, a specialist in "home beautification" from the American College of Beirut, presents us with some of the secrets of this new art, keeping in view our particular needs in the light of her comprehensive studies. The models published with this article are from our own Lebanese homes... The drawings are by the artist "Toros."
In view of the importance of the art of home beautification in the present age, I have found myself impelled to furnish the readers of "The Woman's Voice" with the information and the drawings
pertaining to this art, which for a long stretch of time has lain obscured among us.
The prevailing belief is that this art is confined to the wealthy class and no other; the truth is that every person can work at beautifying his home according to his limited means, and obtain the desired result in adorning his house, if he follows the principles which I shall endeavor to explain.
Some imagine that the beauty of the house lies in its costly furniture and sumptuous furnishings. This is not the fact of the matter, for the beauty of the house rests fundamentally upon arranging the furniture in a way that gives its inhabitants ease. And the harmony of colors with one another has the amplest effect in instilling rest and reassurance into tired nerves. On this account I address my word now to the ladies who complain of straitened means and therefore refrain from beautifying and arranging their homes. I say that if they incline toward a comfortable and beautiful house, they must know and apply the fundamentals of the art of home beautification, which vary with a person's means but always yield the sought-after result, namely: beauty, comfort, and charm.
When you understand, madam, the elements of decoration, at once simple and fundamental, there grows in you a taste of your own, which is reflected in the selection of your home's furniture and its arrangement; and soundness of taste shows in the style you follow and in the comfort of the people of the house and their enjoyment of its charms.
Few are they whose taste is
inborn. Rather, taste is acquired; it grows and takes shape. As for
2 — A modern dining room in the house of the engineer Fouad Kazah. The mirrors on the wall and the table, and the crystal candelabrum, give this room a formal character; and the use of two kinds of wood, light and dark, gives it charm and beauty.