TREATMENT OF WORK TABLES, BIRD CAGES, DOG BASKETS AND FISH GLOBES
Every bedroom planned for a woman, young or old, calls for a work
table, work basket or work bag, or all three, and these furnish
opportunities for additional "flowers" in your room; for we insist
upon regarding accessories as opportunities for extra colour notes
which harmonise with the main colour scheme and enliven your interior
quite as flowers would, cheering it up--and, incidentally, its
inmates! Apropos of this, it was only the other day that some one
remarked in our hearing, "This room is so blooming with lovely bits of
colour in lamp shades, pillows, and _objets d'art_, that I no longer
spend money on cut flowers." There we have it! Precisely the idea we
are trying to express. So make your work-table, if you own the sort
with a silk work-bag suspended from the lower part, your work-basket
or work-bag, represent one, two or three of the colours in your room.
If some one gives you an inharmonious work-bag, either build a room up
to it, or give it away, but never hang it out in a room done in an
altogether different colour scheme.
Bird-cages, dog-baskets and fish-globes may become harmonious instead
of jarring colour notes, if one will give a little thought to the
matter. In fact some of the black iron wrought cages when occupied by
a wonderful parrot with feathers of blue and orange, red and grey, or
red, blue and yellow, can be the making of certain rooms. And there
are canaries with deep orange feathers which look most decorative in
cages painted dark green, as well as the many-coloured paroquet,
lovely behind golden bars.
Many a woman when selecting a dog has bought one which harmonised with
her costume, or got a costume to set off her dog! Certainly a dark or
light brindle bull is a perfect addition to a room done in browns, as
is a red Chow or a tortoise-shell cat.
See to it that cage and basket set off your bird, dog or cat; but
don't let them become too conspicuous notes of colour in your room or
on your porch; let it be the bird, the dog or the cat which has a
colour value.
The fish-globe can be of white or any colour glass you prefer, and
your fish vivid or pale in tone; whichever it is, be sure that they
furnish a needed--not a superfluous--tone of colour in a room or on a
porch.
PLATE XIV
Shows narrow hall in an old country house, thought impossible as
to appearance, but made charming by "pushing out" the wall with
an antique painted tapestry and keeping all woodwork and carpets
the same delicate dove grey.
[Illustration: _A Narrow Hall Where Effect of Width Is Attained by
Use of Tapestry with Vista_]