Floors and Floor Coverings

In planning a room the color values should be divided into the natural divisions of the heaviest, or darkest, part at the bottom, which is the floor; the medium color tone in the middle, which is the wall; and the lightest at the top, which is the ceiling.  This keeps the room from seeming top-heavy and gives the necessary feeling of support for the wall and ceiling.  The walls and floor serve as a background and should not be insistant or startling in color; and the size and height of the room, the amount of wall space, the position of doors, windows and fireplace, the quantity and quality of the light, and the connecting rooms will all be factors in the color scheme and materials chosen.

The floor of a room must be right or all the character of the furnishings will be lost.  One should first see that it is in perfect condition.  If it is a hardwood or parquetry floor it should not be finished the bright and glaring yellow which is sometimes seen, but should be slightly toned down before the finish is put on.  Samples of different tones should be submitted to be tried with samples of the rug and stuffs to be used before the decision is made.  A wax finish is better than the usual coats of shellac, for the wax has a soft and beautiful glow, while shellac has a hard commercial glare.  A waxed floor, if properly taken care of, which is not difficult, wears extremely well and does not have the distressingly shabby appearance of a partly worn shellaced floor.  If the floor is old and worn and is to be painted or stained all cracks should be filled, and the color chosen should be a neutral color-in harmony with the rest of the room, the wood shades usually being the best, with the exception of cherry and the red tones of mahogany.  Teak is a good tone for hard wood.  Soft wood floors of such woods as pine, fir, and cypress can be made to have the appearance of hardwood if first scraped or sandpapered and then stained with an oil stain and finished with a thin coat of shellac and two coats of prepared floor wax.

The usual ways of using floor covering are:  one large rug which leaves a border of hard wood floor of about a foot all around it; several small rugs placed with a well balanced plan upon the floor; and carpet, either seamless or of strips sewed together, made into one rug or entirely covering the floor.

In the majority of cases the use of a single large plain rug is by far the best plan, for it gives the feeling of an unobtrusive background whose beauty of color serves to bind the room in the unity of a well planned scheme; and this sense of dignity and solidity goes a long way on the road to success.  It is one of the most satisfactory methods of covering a floor imaginable.  These plain carpets come in several grades and many colors and are woven in widths from nine to thirty feet which can be cut in any desired length.  This makes it possible to have a rug