Painted furniture is very popular nowadays and is especially delightful when used in chintz rooms.  The furniture we see now is really a revival and reproduction of the old models made by Angelica Kaufman, Heppelwhite, and other furniture-makers of their period.  The old furniture is rarely seen outside of museums nowadays, but it has been an inspiration to modern decorators who are seeking ideas for simple and charming furniture.

A very attractive room can be made by taking unfinished pieces of furniture—­that is, furniture that has not been stained or painted—­and painting them a soft field color, and then adding decorations of bouquets or garlands, or birds, or baskets, reproducing parts of the design of the chintz used in the room.  Of course, many of these patterns could be copied by a good draftsman only, but others are simple enough for anyone to attempt.  For instance, I decorated a room in soft cream, gray, yellow and cornflower blue.  The chintz had a cornflower design that repeated all these colors.  I painted the furniture a very soft gray, and then painted little garlands of cornflowers in soft blues and gray-greens on each piece of furniture.  The walls were painted a soft cream color.  The carpet rug of tan was woven in one piece with a blue stripe in the border.

The color illustrations of this book will give you a very good idea of how I use chintzes and painted furniture.  One of the illustrations shows the use of a black chintz in the dressing-room of a city house.  The chintz is covered with parrots which make gorgeous splashes of color on the black ground.  The color of the foliage and leaves is greenish-blue, which shades into a dozen blues and greens.  This greenish-blue tone has been used in the small things of the room.  The chintz curtains are lined with silk of this tone, and the valance at the top of the group of windows is finished with a narrow silk fringe of this greenish-blue.  The small candle shades, the shirred shade of the drop-light, and the cushion of the black lacquer chair are also of this blue.

The walls of the room are a deep cream in tone, and there are a number of old French prints from some Eighteenth Century fashion journals hung on the cream ground.  The dressing-table is placed against the windows, over the radiator, so that there is light and to spare for dressing.  Half curtains of white muslin are shirred on the sashes back of the dressing-table.  The quaint triplicate mirror is of black lacquer decorated with Chinese figures in gold, and the little, three-cornered cabinet in the corner is also of black and gold.  The chintz is used as a covering for the dressing-seat.