The apartment hall is most difficult, usually long and narrow and uninteresting.  Don’t try to have furniture in a hall of this kind.  A small table near the front door, a good tile for umbrellas, etc., a good mirror—­that is all.  Perhaps a place for coats and hats, but some halls are too narrow for a card table.

The apartment with a dining-room entirely separated from the living-room is very unusual, therefore I am hoping that you will apply all that I have said about the treatment of your living-room to your dining-room as well.  People who live in apartments are very foolish if they cut off a room so little used as a dining-room and furnish it as if it belonged to a huge house.  Why not make it a dining-and book-room, using the big table for reading, between meals, and having your bookshelves so built that they will be in harmony with your china shelves?  Keep all your glass and silver and china in the kitchen, or butler’s pantry, and display only the excellent things—­the old china, the pewter tankard, the brass caddy, and so forth,—­in the dining-room.

However, if you have a real dining-room in your apartment, do try to have chairs that will be comfortable, for you can’t afford to have uncomfortable things in so small a space!  Windsor chairs and rush bottom chairs are best of all for a simple dining-room, I think, though the revival of painted furniture has brought about a new interest in the old flare-back chairs, painted with dull, soft colored posies on a ground of dull green or gray or black.  These chairs would be charming in a small cottage dining-room, but they might not “wear well” in a city apartment.

[Illustration:  BUILT-IN BOOKSHELVES IN A SMALL ROOM]

If your apartment has two small bedrooms, why not use one of them for two single beds, with a night stand between, and the other for a dressing-room?  Apartment bedrooms are usually small, but charming furniture may be bought for small rooms.  Single beds of mahogany with slender posts; beds of painted wood with inset panels of cane; white iron beds, wooden beds painted with quaint designs on a ground of some soft color—­all these are excellent for small rooms.  It goes without saying that a small bedroom should have plain walls, papered or painted in some soft color.  Flowered papers, no matter how delightful they may be, make a small room seem smaller.  Self-toned striped papers and the “gingham” papers are sometimes very good.  The nicest thing about such modest walls is that you can use gay chintz with them successfully.

Use your bedrooms as sleeping-and dressing-rooms, and nothing more.  Do not keep your sewing things there—­a big sewing-basket will add to the homelike quality of your living-room.  Keep the bedroom floor bare, except for a bedside rug, and possibly one or two other rugs.  This, of course, does not apply to the large bedroom—­I am prescribing for the usual small one.  Place your bed against the side wall, so that the morning light will not be directly in your eyes.  A folding screen covered with chintz or linen will prove a God-send.