Persian rugs with their interesting floral designs, and Chinese rugs
with their wonderful tones of blue and yellow are works of art and well
worth the trouble necessary to discover them and the price asked. They
are best adapted to some libraries and halls and some dining-rooms, but
they should not be startling in either design or color. To my mind
Oriental rugs are not well suited to the majority of living-rooms and
bedrooms because of the constant and varied use of these rooms. When
Oriental rugs are used there should be plenty of plain effect in the
room; the walls, for instance, should be plain. I have never seen a room
which was successful if both walls and rug were figured. A fine tapestry
may be used with Oriental rugs, but that is quite different from a
figured wall. If several rugs are to be used in one room they must be of
the same color value and the same general color tone or the floor will
appear uneven. One does not wish to have a room give the uncomfortable
effect of "the rocky road to Dublin." A rug with a general blue tone
must not be put with other rugs of many colors or an overpowering amount
of red, but should be matched in color by having blue the chief color of
the other rugs also. The color value, too, must be even, for a light
rug next to a dark has the same disagreeable effect. It is impossible to
have a beautiful room if the rug seems to rise up and smite you as you
enter. Persian rugs with their conventional floral designs should not be
used with the marked color and geometrical designs of Caucasian rugs.
These points are important to remember and follow, for otherwise unity
of scheme for the room will be impossible.

If one has several fine rugs well matched in color value and design they
should be placed with a due regard to the shape of the room and the
position of the furniture. A rug placed cat-a-cornered breaks up the
structural plan of the room and makes it appear smaller than it really
is. The new lines formed are at odds with the lines of the walls and
interfere with the sense of space by stopping the eye in its instinctive
journey to the boundary of things. Oriental rugs should be tried if
possible in the rooms in which they are to be used before the final
choice is made, and one must always try the rug with the light falling
across the nap and also with the nap, for one way makes the rug lighter
and the other darker, and one of the two may be just what is wanted.

If one owns a rug