Color is brought into the room in the blue and yellow of the Chinese rug, in the chairs, and in the painted table.  The chairs are painted a creamy yellow, pointed with blue, and upholstered with blue and yellow striped velvet.  I do not like high-backed chairs in a dining-room.  Their one claim to use is that they make a becoming background, but this does not compensate for the difficulties of the service when they are used.  An awkward servant pouring soup down one’s back is not an aid to digestion, or to the peace of mind engendered by a good dinner.

[Illustration:  MRS. OGDEN ARMOUR’S CHINESE-PAPER SCREEN]

[Illustration:  MRS. JAMES WARREN LANE’S PAINTED DINING-TABLE]

The painted table is very unusual.  The legs and the carved under-frame are painted cream and pointed with blue, like the chairs, but the top is as gay as an old-fashioned garden, with stiff little medallions, and urns spilling over with flowers, and conventional blossoms picked out all over it.  The colors used are very soft, blue and cream being predominant.  The table is covered with a sheet of plate glass.  This table is, of course, too elaborate for a simple dining-room, but the idea could be adapted and varied to suit many color and furniture schemes.

Painted furniture is a delight in a small dining-room.  In the Colony Club I planned a very small room for little dinners that is well worth reproducing in a small house.  This little room was very hard to manage because there were no windows!  There were two tiny little openings high on the wall at one end of the room, but it would take imagination to call them windows.  The room was on the top floor, and the real light came from a skylight.  You can imagine the difficulty of making such a little box interesting.  However, there was one thing that warmed my heart to the little room:  a tiny ante-room between the hall proper and the room proper.  This little ante-room I paneled in yellowish tan and gray.  I introduced a sofa covered with an old brocade just the color of dried rose leaves—­ashes of roses, the French call it—­and the little ante-room became a fitting introduction to the dining-room within.

The walls of the rooms were paneled in a delicious color between yellow and tan, the wall proper and the moldings being this color, and the panels themselves filled with a gray paper painted in pinky yellows and browns.  These panels were done by hand by a man who found his inspiration in the painted panels of an old French ballroom.  As the walls were unbroken by windows there was ample space for such decoration.  A carpet of rose color was chosen, and the skylight was curtained with shirred silk of the same rose.  The table and chairs were of painted wood, the chairs having seats of the brocade used on the ante-room sofa.  The table was covered with rose colored brocade, and over this, cobwebby lace, and over this, plate glass.  There are two consoles in the room, with small cabinets above which hold certain objets d’art in keeping with the room.