ing
in a crazy-quilt of unfriendly colors. I have seen four room apartments
in which every room had a different wall paper and different woodwork.
The "parlor" was papered with poisonous-looking green paper, with
imitation mahogany woodwork; the dining-room had walls covered with red
burlap and near-oak woodwork; the bedroom was done in pink satin
finished paper and bird's-eye maple woodwork, and the kitchen was
bilious as to woodwork, with bleak gray walls. Could anything be more
mistaken?

You can make the most commonplace rooms livable if you will paint all
your woodwork cream, or gray, or sage green, and cover your walls with a
paper of very much the same tone. Real hard wood trim isn't used in
ordinary apartments, so why not do away with the badly-grained imitation
and paint it? You can look through thousands of samples of wall papers,
and you will finally have to admit that there is nothing better for
every day living than a deep cream, a misty gray, a tan or a buff paper.

You may have a certain license in the papering of your bedrooms, of
course, but the living-rooms--hall, dining-room, living-room,
drawing-room, and so forth--should be pulled together with walls of one
color. In no other way can you achieve an effect of spaciousness--and
spaciousness is the thing of all other things most desirable in the
crowded city. You must have a place where you can breathe and fling your
arms about!

When you have it really ready for furnishing, get the essentials first;
do with a bed and a chest of drawers and a table and a few chairs, and
add things gradually, as the rooms call for them.

Make the best of the opportunities offered for built-in furniture before
you buy another thing. If you have a built-in china closet in your
dining-room, you can plan a graceful built-in console-table to serve as
a buffet or serving-table, and you will require only a good table--not
too heavily built--and a few chairs for this room. There is rarely a
room that would not be improved by built-in shelves and inset mirrors.

Of course, I do not advise you to spend a lot of money on someone else's
property, but why not look the matter squarely in the face? This is to
be your home. You will find a number of things that annoy you--life in
any city furnishes annoyances. But if you have one or two reasonably
large rooms, plenty of light and air, and respectable surroundings, make
up your mind that you will not move every year. That you will