Lately there has been a great revival of interest in wood paneling.  We go abroad, and see the magnificent paneling of old English houses, and we come home and copy it.  But we cannot get the workmen who will carve panels in the old patterns.  We cannot wait a hundred years for the soft bloom that comes from the constant usage, and so our paneled rooms are apt to be too new and woody.  But we have such a wonderful store of woods, here in America, it is worth while to panel our rooms, copying the simple rectangular English patterns, and it is quite permissible to “age” our walls by rubbing in black wax, and little shadows of water-color, and in fact by any method we can devise.  Wood paneled walls, like beamed ceilings, are best in great rooms.  They make boxes of little ones.

Painted walls, and walls hung with tapestries and leather, are not possible to many of us, but they are the most magnificent of wall treatments.  I know a wonderful library with walls hung in squares of Spanish leather, a cold northern room that merits such a brilliant wall treatment.  The primitive colors of the Cordova leather workers, with gold and crimson dominant, glow from the deep shadows.  Spanish and Italian furniture and fine old velvets and brocades furnish this room.  The same sort of room invites wood paneling and tapestry, whereas the ideal room for painted walls in a lighter key is the ballroom, or some such large apartment.  I once decorated a ballroom with Pillement panels, copied from a beautiful Eighteenth Century room, and so managed to bring a riot of color and decoration into a large apartment.  The ground of the paneling was deep yellow, and all the little birds and flowers surrounding the central design were done in the very brightest, strongest colors imaginable.  The various panels had quaint little scenes of the same Chinese flavor.  Of course, in such an apartment as a ballroom there would be nothing to break into the decorative plan of the painted walls, and the unbroken polished floor serves only to throw the panels into their proper prominence.  Painted walls, when done in some such broad and daring manner, are very wonderful, but they should not be attempted by the amateur, or, indeed, by an expert in a room that will be crowded with furniture, and curtains, and rugs.

If your walls are faulty, you must resort to wall papers or fabrics.  Properly selected wall papers are not to be despised.  The woodwork of a room, of course, directly influences the treatment of its walls.  So many people ask me for advice about wall papers, and forget absolutely to tell me of the finish of the framing of their wall spaces.  A pale yellowish cream wall paper is very charming with woodwork of white, but it would not do with woodwork of heavy oak, for instance.

[Illustration:  A WALL PAPER OF ELIZABETHAN DESIGN WITH OAK FURNITURE]