The average hall will probably need a pair of console tables and mirrors, some chairs, Oriental rugs, a tall clock if one wishes, and, if the hall is very large and calls for more furniture, there are many other interesting pieces to choose from.  A hall should be treated with a certain amount of formality, and the greater the house, the greater the amount; but it also should have an air of hospitality, of impersonal welcome, which makes one wish to enter the rooms beyond where the real welcome waits.

The window frames of Colonial and Georgian houses were often of such good design that no curtains were used, and the wooden inside shutters were shut at night.  Nowadays the average house has what might be called utility woodwork at its windows and so we cover them with curtains.  These curtains may be of linen, cretonne, damask, or brocade, according to the house, and may either fall straight at the side with a slight drapery or shaped or plain valance at the top, or be drawn back from the center.  A carved cornice or the regular box frame may be used.

The stairs were often of beautifully polished hardwood, and they were sometimes covered with rugs.  Large Chinese porcelain jars on the console tables are suitable, and other beautiful ornaments.

As the drawing-room usually opens from the hall, it is better to keep both rooms in the same general scale of furnishing.  The average sized drawing-room will need sofas, a small settee, two or three tables, one of them a gallery table if desired, chairs of different shapes and size, mirrors, a cabinet if one has rare pieces of old porcelain, and candelabra.  Oriental rugs, a fire screen, ornaments, and pictures, but these last should not be of the modern impressionistic school.  The woodwork should be white, or light, and the furniture covered with damask, needlework, brocade or tapestry.

The dining-room can be made most charming with corner cupboards and cabinet, a large mahogany table and side table and beautiful morocco covered chairs.  Chippendale did not make sideboards in our sense of the word, but used large side tables.  One of the modern designs which many like to use, for to them it seems a necessity, is a sideboard made in the style of Chippendale.  The screen may be leather painted after “the Chinese taste,” or it may be damask.  The chairs may be covered with tapestry or damask if one does not care for morocco.  Portraits are interesting in a dining-room, or old prints, or paintings, and if you can get the old dull gold carved frames, so much the better.  They may also be set in panels.

The bedrooms may have either four-post canopy beds or low-posts beds.  Chippendale’s canopy beds had usually a carved cornice with the curtains hung from the inside.  The other furniture should consist of a dressing-table, a chest of drawers to correspond with a chiffonier, a highboy, a sewing table, a bedside table, a comfortable sofa, a fireside or wing chair and other chairs according to one’s need.  The walls may be covered with either an old-fashioned or plain paper,—­or paneled, with hangings and chair coverings of chintz or cretonne.  The bed hangings may be of cretonne also, for it makes a very charming room, but if one objects to colored bed hangings, white dimity, or muslin or linen may be used.