reminiscent of Craftsmen furniture, but not heavy or awkward in build.  This furniture is painted in different stock colors and designs, or can be painted according to the purchaser’s wishes as a special order.  These “stock” designs are often stenciled, but some of them have an effective charm and are suitable to country houses, and also many city ones.  When there is much chintz used, the furniture will often be more attractive if it is only striped with the chief color used in the room.  The designs which are to be avoided are of the Art Nouveau and Cubist variety, roses that look like cabbages gone crazy, badly conventionalized flowers, and crude and revolting color schemes.  It sounds as if it should not be necessary to warn people against these monstrosities, and I have never heard of any one who buys them, but some one must do so or they would not be in the shops.

Attractive and inexpensive painted furniture can be made to be used in simple surroundings by buying slat-backed chairs with splint seats and a drop-leaf pine table and having them painted the desired ground color and then striped and decorated with a motif from the chintz to be used in the room.  A country house dining-room or bedroom could be most charmingly fitted up in this way, chintz cushions could be used on the chairs, and candle shades could be made to match.  One can sometimes find a bed or chest of drawers or other piece of furniture which is a bit shopworn and can be had for a bargain.  Old bureaus can be made to serve as chests of drawers by taking the mirror off and using it as a wall mirror.  In many houses there are old sets of ugly furniture which can be made useful and often attractive by having the jigsaw carving removed and painting them.  In a set of this kind, which I was doing over for a client, there happened to be two beds with towering headboards, quite impossible to use, but I combined the two footboards, thus making one attractive bed.  The furniture was painted a soft pumpkin yellow, striped with blue and with little, old-fashioned nosegays, and a lovely linen with yellow and cream stripes and baskets of flowers was used and turned a dark and dreary room into a cheerful and pretty one.

One can find some kind of suitable painted furniture for nearly every room in the average modern house.  People everywhere are turning away more and more from the heavy, depressing effects of a few years ago; but unless they know the ground they are walking on they must tread with care.  The style chosen must be appropriate and in scale with the style of house.  The fine examples would look quite out of place in a bungalow or very simple house, and the simple kind founded on peasant designs would not be suitable in rooms with paneled walls and lovely taffeta curtains.  In Georgian and simple French designs there are fascinating examples of chairs, settees and tables, corner cupboards and sideboards, beds and dressing-tables and chests of drawers, mirrors and footstools and candlesticks, everything both big and little which can be used in almost any of our charming rooms in the average house, with their fresh chintz and taffeta and well planned color schemes.