Bedrooms should have a good light over the dressing table, and to my mind, two movable lights upon it, which may be in the form of wired candlesticks or small lamps.  These are much more convenient than fixed lights.  There should be a light over any long mirror, and one for the desk and sofa or chaise longue, and one for the bedside table.  The dressing-room should be supplied with a light over the chiffonier and long mirror, and there should also be a table light.  Clothes closets should have simple lights.

And do not forget the kitchen if one wishes properly cooked meals.  A light so placed that it shines into the oven has saved many a burned dish, and a light over the sink has saved many a broken one.  The servants’ sitting-room should have a good reading lamp.

The question of the style of the fixtures is important, for if they are badly chosen they will quite spoil an otherwise perfect room.  They must harmonize in period with the room, and also with its scale of furnishing.  There is a wide choice in the shops, and some of the designs are very good indeed, having been carefully studied and adapted from beautiful museum specimens of old Italian, French, English, and Spanish, carvings and ornament.  Some of our iron workers make very fine metal fixtures which are beautiful copies of old French and Italian work.  There are graceful and sturdy designs, elaborate and simple, special period designs, and many which are appropriate for rooms of no particular period.  There are charming lacquer sconces to go with lacquer furniture, and old-fashioned prism candelabra and sconces, and fixtures copied from choice old whale oil lamps in both brass and bronze.  There are suitable designs for each and every room.  The difficulty lies not in finding too few to choose from, but too many, and, growing weary, making a selection not quite so good as it should be.  One should take blue prints to the shop if possible, but necessary measurements without fail.  One must know not only the width of the wall spaces, but the width of the pictures and furniture to be put in the room, or the calamity may happen of having the fixtures a bit too wide.  When fixtures are meant to be a special part of the decorative scheme, and support and enhance pictures and tapestries, they should have an appropriate decorative value also, but in the average home it is better and safer to choose the simpler, but still beautiful, designs.  It is better to err on the side of simplicity than to have them too elaborate.

Lamps should be chosen to harmonize with the room, to add their usefulness and beauty to it as a part of the whole and be convincingly right both by day and night.  There are many possibilities for having lamps made of different kinds of pottery and porcelain jars; some crackle-ware jars are very good in color.  Chinese porcelain jars, both single color and figured, make lovely lamps.  Old and valuable specimens should not be used in this way, for they are works