A GOLDEN COLOR SCHEME
When the time came for having the interior decorating done in Sweetbrier
Lodge and for getting the furniture, the U. S. C. felt that they were
really in the very midst of a delightful experience. The attic was
furnished with brown wicker, as Miss Graham had suggested. A small
upright piano was brought up through a window, and this pleasant, quiet
room at the top of the house, served to give Dorothy a spot for
practising where she would disturb no one. Up here, too, she could keep
any work that she was doing and merely put it into a chest that she had
prepared for the purpose, whenever she wanted to leave it, or, if it was
something that could not easily be moved, it might even be kept out upon
the table and there would be no one to be annoyed by an appearance of
untidiness.
The piano was to be a pleasure at the club meetings, for all the U. S. C.
members liked to sing, and Helen was planning that they should wind up
every meeting during the coming winter with a good stirring chorus before
they separated for the afternoon.
On the bedroom floor, the furnishings were carried out as they had been
planned, Elisabeth's room in blue, Dorothy's in pink, and Mrs. Smith's in
primrose yellow, and the two guest chambers in violet and a delicate,
misty grey. The wood-work was painted ivory white and the floors were all
of hard wood. Rugs in harmonious tints gave the desirable depths of tone
to the color plan.
On this floor Mrs. Smith had a sewing room and also a small sitting room,
where she could write business letters and be quite undisturbed. With the
floor below came the really serious work of furnishing, the girls
thought. The drawing room was the important feature of this floor.
"Here is the family hearth," said Mrs. Smith to Dorothy, "and we want to
make this room beautiful--one that people will like to come into and to
stay in."
"It must not be cold in color, then," said Dorothy. "Nobody likes to stay
in a chilly looking room."
"And it ought not to be too warm in color," said plump little Della, who
suffered terribly from the heat in summer. "It just makes me perspire to
_think_ of some of the thick, heavy-looking rooms I've been in. They are
only suitable for zero weather and we don't seem to have any more zero
weather nowadays."
Mrs. Smith had allowed Dorothy to ask the club members to have cocoa with
her on the afternoon when the final decisions were to be made. They had
brought down from up-stairs some of the chairs and a table which had
already been put into the bed-rooms. Dorothy and the Ethels had made
cocoa and had baked some cocoanut cakes on the new electric oven, and
they were all gathered in the drawing room, sipping their cocoa and
looking about them at the possibilities of the room.
"Before we begin, tell me how you made these cakes," said Margaret, who
was always adding a new receipt to her cook book.
"We took half a pound of dried cocoanut and two ounces of sugar and three
ounces of ground rice, and mixed them all up together. Then we beat the
whites of three eggs perfectly stiff and stirred the froth thoroughly
into the other things," said Ethel Brown.
"Then we dipped out a tablespoonful at a time and put it on to a buttered
baking tin, and baked it all in a quick oven for five minutes," said
Ethel Blue, "but we didn't take the tin out, right off. We let the oven
cool and the little cakes cook slowly for half an hour longer."
"They do be marvellous good," murmured James, and all the others agreed
with him.
Miss Graham had come over with Margaret and James, but she said that she
was not going to give her professional advice until it was asked for.
"I may as well tell you first of all," said Mrs. Smith, "what my color
scheme is for this room, and then you can help me with the details. I
want the whole thing to be in tones of brown, lightened by yellow, and
contrasted with that dull blue you see in Oriental rugs. Now, keep that
scheme of color in your mind and work it out for me."
"I think you must have told the painter about it before he did the
wood-work," guessed Margaret. "This wood-work is white, but a yellowish
white that will be quite in harmony with your brown and gold scheme."
"You've caught me," smiled Mrs. Smith. "It had to be done, so I told him
what I wanted. It's successful, don't you think so?" she asked, looking
toward Miss Graham.
"Entirely," approved Miss Daisy.
"The floors are hard wood, but I suppose you're going to have a big brown
and gold and blue rug," said Helen.
"Certainly those colors, if I can find just the right thing," said her
aunt.
"I was with Mother the other day in a rug shop," said Della, "and I saw
beautiful Chinese rugs, with dull blue backgrounds and figures of brown
and tan."
"I've noticed," said Helen, "that Oriental rugs have a great deal of red
and green in them. I should think it might be hard to find rugs with just
brown and blue."
"I have discovered that it is," said Mrs. Smith, "for I've already been
on one or two searching trips. Still, those Chinese rugs that Della
mentioned are always available, and if you hunt far enough you can get
others with the brown note uppermost. What do you think about size?" she
asked.
"Oh," said Helen. "I seem to see in my mind's eye a huge, great, splendid
one in the middle of the room."
"It would be a beautiful rug probably," said Ethel Brown, "but I don't
know that I should like one big fellow as much as two smaller ones."
"Why not?" asked Miss Graham.
"I don't know that I can tell you," answered Ethel Brown, blushing.
"Perhaps it's because it makes the room seem too big and grand, and the
arrangement of smaller ones would break it up into smaller sections, and
make it seem more home-like."
Miss Daisy nodded as if she were satisfied, but made no comment.
"How do all of you feel about the size of the rugs?" inquired Mrs. Smith,
and Helen put the question to vote.
They decided that they liked the idea of two or more rugs of medium size
with little ones where they were needed instead of a very large one in
the centre of the room.
"I think you're right," said Mrs. Smith, "and I think that it will be
easier to find the smaller ones than the very large ones--and less
expensive into the bargain," she said, laughing.
"What is the furniture to be?" inquired Tom.
"Dorothy and I had a few antiques that have been kept for us all these
years from my father's house, and they have given us the note for the
rest. They are mahogany, colonial in style, so we think that we must make
the rest of the furniture harmonize with them."
"Aunt Marion told me she saw some lovely reproductions of truly old
chairs and tables and things," said Ethel Blue. "I suppose you can make
the room look as if every piece in it was a truly old one."
"If I had money enough, I could undoubtedly find truly old pieces," said
Mrs. Smith, "but I think I shall content myself with the modern pieces in
the old style."
"At any rate, they will be stronger," said Margaret. "We have some very
old furniture, and since we put steam heat in our house, they've been
falling to pieces as fast as they could fall."
"How are the walls of this room to be treated?" asked James.
"There I want your help," said Mrs. Smith.
"I saw a dark brown paper dashed with gold the other day, on the library
wall at Mrs. Schermerhorn's," said Roger.
"Too dark," cried the Ethels in chorus. "Mrs. Schermerhorn's wood-work is
dark and Aunt Louise's is almost white."
"There's a kind of Japanese paper that looks like metal burlap," said
Margaret. "It has a little glint of gold in it."
"That's too dark, too, I think," said Dorothy. "It ought to be something
that will connect the yellow-white of the wood-work with the gold, which
is the lightest tone in Mother's color scheme."
Again Miss Graham nodded her approval, although she said nothing.
"I saw a very wide pongee silk the other day that would be just about the
right shade, if it could be put on like wall-paper," said Ethel Blue. "It
would be a little darker than this paint, and it would tie on to the gold
in the rug or in any piece of furniture covering."
Again Miss Graham nodded.
"And I don't see why it couldn't be stenciled," said Ethel Brown.
"Something like the walls upstairs in the apple-blossom room, only of
course something that would be appropriate for this room. But even if you
didn't like that idea," she went on, "I think the pongee silk alone would
be beautiful."
Mrs. Smith liked that idea, too, but she hesitated to give her final
decision until she had examined a certain homespun linen which she had
had recommended to her as a possible success from the point of view of
color.
"Now that you have finished your cocoa, I want you to move your chairs
over here, where you can look into the dining room," she said. "You see,
I've had the dining room separated from this room by folding doors; there
will be door curtains also, but I want to be able to shut off the room
entirely from this room if I choose. Now, while we talk about the
furniture here, look into the dining room and get the shape of it into
your minds, so that you can regard it as a sort of outgrowth of this
room. Are you comfortable now?"
They said they were and went on to discuss the furniture.
"Will all of the pieces be upholstered with the same material?" asked
Ethel Blue.
"Oh, no," cried Ethel Brown. "Let's have two or three different shades of
brown, and one in the right shade of yellow and one or two in the same
dull blue of the rug."
Again Miss Graham nodded.
"You want to repeat in the furniture the colors of the rug," she said.
"They give you a wide range of tones because these Oriental rugs may have
as many as twenty-five shades of blue, so finely graduated that you can
hardly tell them apart, except with a reading glass. The brown and gold
of the furniture will bring out the brown and gold of the floor covering
and you must be careful that the yellow of the furniture is not so
brilliant as to overpower the more delicate yellow of your walls. There
should be a sort of scale from the yellowish white wood-work which is
your highest note, down to the darkest shade of brown."
"Now, that we've decided about the furniture, tell me what general idea
you have for the dining room," said Mrs. Smith. "I'm all excitement to
hear what you have to say about the dining room, because it isn't quite
clear in my own mind, and I want to work it out with you."
"You want it to be an outgrowth of this room," said Helen, "and you don't
want it treated like an entirely separate room."
"Since it is connected with this room by so wide an opening, when the
doors are drawn back," said her aunt, "it seems to me as if it ought to
be in harmony with the coloring here."
They all agreed with this idea.
"I suggest," said Margaret, "that the whole room might be a little darker
than this room, although decorated with the same colors."
Miss Graham again approved this.
"It has the morning sun," said Dorothy, "and at night through most of the
year the gas is lighted at dinner time so it isn't necessary to have it
so bright as the other room."
"Then why not have everything the same, except just a little deeper in
tone," said Ethel Blue. "Have the wood-work a trifle darker and find some
material for the walls or have them color-washed a few shades darker than
the pongee. The floor is a little darker than this anyway and one of the
darker blue Chinese rugs will be lovely on it."
"Mother's china is blue Canton," said Dorothy. "That will give blue touch
that will harmonize with the rugs."
They were all pleased with their decisions and were greatly pleased when
Miss Graham approved their wisdom.
The electricians had put in the electric fixtures and they noticed that
the dining room side lights of both the dining room and drawing room
looked like sconces; that there was a glowing bowl of light in the
ceiling above the dinner table; and that the half concealed lights were
to give a pleasant radiance in the larger room, while plugs around the
wall permitted the use of electric lamps for reading or sewing at many
different points.
"How is this little reception room to be done, Mrs. Smith?" asked James
as he roamed into a small room just beside the front door.
"This whole floor, all in all, is to have the same color scheme," said
Mrs. Smith. "I think this and the hall will be done like the dining
room."
"Come out now, and see the maid's sitting room," cried Dorothy. "It is
the cunningest thing and so pretty."
The wicker furniture had already come for this room and the attic, and
they all exclaimed at the delicate shade of gray rattan which made a
charming back-ground for cushions of flowered chintz.
"I think it's a dear duck of a room!" said Ethel Brown.
"And see the roses on the walls!" exclaimed Dorothy. "And it opens on to
a little porch that is going to be covered with rambler roses all summer,
if I can possibly make them grow and blossom."
"How many of you people can go to the Metropolitan Museum with me on
Saturday?" asked Miss Graham. "I know you younger ones are all busy in
school now, and the boys are getting ready to go to college, so that is
your only day, for we want plenty of time."
There was not one of them who could not go, so they arranged about trains
and where they should pick up the Watkinses in New York, and separated
with pleasant expectations of the very good time ahead of them.