MATTINGS

Mattings, if preferred to the bare floor, come in a variety of patterns and colors and look neat and fresh, and cool in summer if used without rugs.  They are a yard wide and range in price from 10 to 50 cents a yard for the Chinese, and from 20 to 60 cents for the Japanese.  There is very little choice between the two, though the Chinese wears a little better, perhaps.  Matting is easily broken and should not be used where the bed must be drawn away from the wall to be made, or heavy furniture moved about.

WALL COVERING

Passing from floor to walls, we reach that portion of the room which gives it its real atmosphere and supplies a background for all that it contains, of both “things and people.”  The bedroom seems to be preeminently a woman’s room:  here she reads and writes, rests and sews; it is her help in trouble, her refuge in times of storm.  The intangible something which surrounds the eternal feminine clings about her room and tells a very truthful tale of the individuality of its occupant.  Her favorite color peeps out from wall and drapery; her books, well-thumbed and hearing evidences of intimate association, lie cozily about, and her workbasket reveals the source of certain dainty covers and indescribable nothings which so materially refine the whole aspect of the room.  Though she receives her formal calls in the drawing-room, it is in her bedroom that those confidential chats, so dear to the feminine heart, take place; therefore its background must be chosen with some idea of its becomingness, and the happy medium in color and tint selected, softening and becoming to all alike.  As absence of manners is good manners, so absence of effect is, after all, the best effect.  First and foremost, avoid the plague of white walls and ceilings, which cast a ghastly light over the whole room and make one fairly shiver with cold.  The general plan is to shade the color up from floor to ceiling, and this is accomplished in so many differing and equally attractive ways that it is impossible to do more than offer suggestions which may be elaborated to suit individual tastes and conditions.  Of course calcimine is the simplest and cheapest style of decoration, and recommends itself to the anti-germ disciple because it can be renewed annually at slight expense.  The only difficulty lies in getting just the right tint, for decorators, though no doubt worthy of their hire, are not always capable of handling the artistic side of their business, and an uncongenial shade gets on the nerves after a while.  The same thing holds true of painted walls and ceilings, though they too are hygienically good.  When we come to papers, we are lost in a maze of stripes and garlands and nosegays, either alone or in combination.  Prettiness is by no means synonymous with expense these days, when the general patterns