Curtains either make or mar a room, and they should be carefully planned to make it a perfect whole.  They must be so convincingly right that one only thinks at first how restful and pleasant and charming the whole room is; the details come later.  When curtains stand out and astound one, they are wrong.  It is not upholstery one is trying to display, but to make a perfect background for one’s furniture, one’s pictures and one’s friends.

There are so many materials to choose from that all tastes and purses can be suited; nets, thin silk and gauzes; scrims and batistes; cotton and silk crepes, muslin or dotted Swiss, cheesecloth, soleil cloth, madras, and a host of other fascinating fabrics which may be used in any room of the house.  The ready-made curtains are also charming.  There are muslin curtains with applique borders cut from flowered cretonne; sometimes the cretonne is applique on net which is let into the curtain with a four-inch hem at the bottom and sides.  A simpler style has a band of flowered muslin sewed on the white muslin, or used as a ruffle.  It is also added to the valance.  There are many kinds of net and lace curtains ready for use that will harmonize with any kind of room.  Some of the expensive ones are really beautiful examples of needlecraft, with lace medallions and insertions and embroidery stitches.

When it comes to the question of side curtains the supply to choose from is almost unlimited, and this great supply forms the bog in which so many are lost.  A thing may be beautiful in itself and yet cause woe and havoc in an otherwise charming room.  There are linens of all prices, and cretonnes, both the inexpensive kind and the wonderful shadow ones; there are silks and velvets and velours, aurora cloth, cotton crepe and arras cloth, and a thousand other beautiful stuffs that are cheap or medium-priced or expensive, whose names only the shopman knows, but which win our admiration from afar.  The curtains for a country house are usually of less valuable materials than those for a town house, and this is as it should be, for winter life is usually more formal than summer life.  Nothing can be prettier, however, for a country house than cretonne.  It is fresh and dainty and gives a cool and delightful appearance to a room.  Among the many designs there are some for every style of decoration.

[Illustration:  The arrangement of sofa and table are excellent, but there should be other centers of interest in the room.  As it is, this room just misses its aim, and is neither a strict period room nor a really comfortable modern one.]