otic in the house-rules if this is not allowed. Yet, even
individuality of taste and expression must scrupulously follow sanitary
laws in the furnishing of the bedroom. "Stuffy things" of any sort
should be avoided. The study should be to make it beautiful without such
things, and a liberal use of washable textiles in curtains, portieres,
bed and table covers, will give quite as much sense of luxury as heavily
papered walls and costly upholstery. In fact, one may run through all
the variations from the daintiest and most befrilled and elegant of
guests' bedrooms, to the "boys' room," which includes all or any of the
various implements of sport or the hobbies of the boy collector, and
yet keep inviolate the principles of harmony, colour, and
appropriateness to use, and so accomplish beauty.

The absolute ruling of light, air, and cleanliness are quite compatible
with individual expression.

It is this characteristic aspect of the different rooms which makes up
the beauty of the house as a whole. If the purpose of each is left to
develop itself through good conditions, the whole will make that most
delightful of earthly things, a beautiful home.

CHAPTER VI

KITCHENS

The kitchen is an important part of the perfect house and should be a
recognised sharer in its quality of beauty; not alone the beauty which
consists of a successful adaptation of means to ends, but the kind which
is independently and positively attractive to the eye.

In costly houses it is not hard to attain this quality or the rarer one
of a union of beauty, with perfect adaptation to use; but where it must
be reached by comparatively inexpensive methods, the difficulty is
greater.

Tiled walls, impervious to moisture, and repellent of fumes, are ideal
boundaries of a kitchen, and may be beautiful in colour, as well as
virtuous in conduct. They may even be laid with gradations of alluring
mineral tints, but, of course, this is out of the question in cheap
buildings; and in demonstrating the possibility of beauty and intrinsic
merit in small and comparatively inexpensive houses, tiles and marbles
must be ruled out of the scheme of kitchen perfection. Plaster, painted
in agreeable tints of oil colour is commendable, but one can do better
by covering the walls with the highly enamelled oil-cloth commonly used
for kitchen tables and shelves. This material is quite marvellous in its
combination of use and effect. Its possibilities were discover