File:American homes and gardens (1911) (17970297648).jpg

Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar81911newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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ON GOOD TASTE IN INTERIOR DECORATION By Harry Martin Yeomans HE home-builder without architectural ex- perience should hardly attempt to build his own house without the assistance of a com- petent architect. An article on this subject appeared in the October number of Ameri- can Homes and Gardens and presented the matter in a light that served to enable the reader to draw his own conclusions definitely in accord with this state- ment. However, once the structure itself is finished, it oftens happens that the average homemaker does not feel that he either can or wishes to go to the expense of having the decoration of the house carried out all at one time under the supervision of any one professional decorator, even though he might wish to have one or two rooms done in this manner. And so, under the circumstances, he will probably decide to do the decorations himself, making his selections and carrying out his ideas in the matter of fur- nishings without other assistance than his own taste. Hap- pily the average small house as a rule does not present to the decorator many of the technical difficulties that have to be overcome by the architect. Therefore the amateur decorator may approach his task with a reasonable degree of confidence. THE various articles that appear from time to time in the pages of American Homes and Gardens strive to present to their readers individual problems whose solu- tions are accomplished through the medium of good taste in the selection and application. The illustrations chosen are such as give safe guidance in the matter of architecture and decorative designs, wherefore one undertaking for the first time the decoration of his own home personally will, it is hoped, find both inspiration and instruction in the peru- sal of these pages. IT is not enough alone that the house should be well de- signed and well built, or that it should be well fur- nished—it is just in this matter of furnishing that one finds the keynote of the house that is homelike in contradistinction to the house which is not. It oftens happens that the house undertaken by the professional decorator, especially the small house, though charming in its design as a thing of con- struction apart from its association with the life of those who are to inhabit its rooms, turns out to be alien in spirit to those living within the house. Indeed, the most success- ful houses are those which reflect the personalities of the dwellers therein and become appropriate settings for them- selves and for their lares and penates, for which reason it invariably happens that the most successful homelike small house is that which is decorated personally by its owner if he only exercises restraint in selection and carries out his plans for beautifying the house within under the guidance of good taste. AN aspiring playwright once asked a well-known drama- ^ tist how he constructed his plays, and was told in reply that he wrote all of his scenes and speeches at great length just as they occurred to him, but when he came to arrange the parts of his drama he commenced a process of elimina- tion whereby he left out everything not necessary to the artistic evolution of his play and everything not absolutely requisite to its utility, the result being one of vigorous dramatic strength. This illustrates in a way the principle that might well be applied to the matter of interior decora- tion in a house of any sort. For good taste not only concerns itself with the question of what could be put
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A dining-room, elegant in the simplicity ot its well-cnosen rurmsnings A paneled dining-room, not overcrowded with inappropriate furnishings

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