First I found a wee Oriental rug that repeated the colors of the jugs.  This was to go before the hearth.  Then I worked out the shell of the room:  the woodwork white, the walls bluish green, the plain carpet a soft green.  I designed the furniture and had it made by a skilful carpenter, for I could find none that would harmonize with the room.

The day bed which is forty-two inches wide, is built like a wide roomy sofa.  One would never suspect it of being a plain bed.  Still it makes no pretensions to anything else, for it has the best of springs and the most comfortable of mattresses, and a dozen soft pillows.  The bed is of wood and is painted a soft green, with a dark-green line running all around, and little painted festoons of flowers in decoration.  The mattress and springs are covered with a most delightful mauve chintz, on which birds and flowers are patterned.  There are several easy chairs cushioned with this chintz, and the window hangings are also of it.  The chest of drawers is painted in the same manner.  There are glass knobs on the drawers, and a sheet of plate glass covers the top of it.  An old painting hangs above it.

The open bookshelves are perfectly plain in construction.  They are painted the same bluish-green, and the only decoration is the line of dark green about half an inch from the edge.  Any woman who is skilful with her brush could decorate furniture of this kind, and I daresay many women could build it.

There is another bedroom in this house, a room in red and blue.  “Red and blue”—­you shudder.  I know it!  But such red and such blue!

Will you believe me when I assure you that this room is called cool and restful-looking by everyone who sees it?  The walls are painted plain cream.  The woodwork is white.  The perfectly plain carpet rug is of a dull red that is the color of an old-fashioned rose—­you know the roses that become lavender when they fade?  The mantel is of Siena marble, and over it there is an old mirror with an upper panel painted in colors after the manner of some of those delightful old rooms found in France about the time of Louis XVI.  If you have one very good picture and will use it in this way, inset over the mantel with a mirror below it, you will need no other pictures in your room.

[Illustration:  By permission of the Butterick Publishing Co.  THE WRITING CORNER OF A CHINTZ BEDROOM]

The chintz used in this room is patterned in the rose red of the carpet and a dull cool blue, on a white ground.  This chintz is used on the graceful sofa, the several chairs and the bed, which are ivory in tone.  The hangings of the bed are lined with taffetas of rose red.  The bedcover is of the same silk, and the inner curtains at the window are lined with it.  The small table at the head of the bed, the kidney table beside the sofa, and the small cabinets near the mantel, are of mahogany.  There is a mahogany writing-table placed at right angles to the windows.