American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian HomesStowe, Harriet Beecher
Religion
American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Home economics
it will take a rich, yellow tinge, which harmonizes admirably with
chromos, and lightens up engravings to singular advantage. Besides the
American and the higher range of German and English chromos, there are
very many pretty little French chromos, which can be had at prices
from $1 to $5, including black walnut frames.
[Illustration: Fig. 40]
[Illustration: Fig. 41]
[Illustration: Fig. 42]
[Illustration: Fig. 43]
We have been through this calculation merely to show our readers how
much beautiful effect may be produced by a wise disposition of color
and skill in arrangement. If any of our friends should ever carry it
out, they will find that the buff paper, with its dark, narrow border;
the green chintz repeated in the lounge, the ottomans, and lambrequins;
the flowing, white curtains; the broad, generous centre-table, draped
with its ample green cloth, will, when arranged together, produce an
effect of grace and beauty far beyond what any one piece or even half
a dozen pieces of expensive cabinet furniture could. The great, simple
principle of beauty illustrated in this room is _harmony of color_.
You can, in the same way, make a red room by using Turkey red for your
draperies; or a blue room by using blue chintz. Let your chintz be of
a small pattern, and one that is decided in color.
We have given the plan of a room with matting on the floor because
that is absolutely the cheapest cover. The price of thirty yards plain,
good ingrain carpet, at $1.50 per yard, would be forty-five dollars;
the difference between forty-five and fifteen dollars would _furnish_ a
room with pictures such as we have instanced. However, the same
programme can be even better carried out with a green ingrain carpet as
the foundation of the color of the room.
Our friends, who lived seven years upon matting, contrived to give
their parlor in winter an effect of warmth and color by laying down,
in front of the fire, a large square of carpeting, say three breadths,
four yards long. This covered the gathering-place around the fire where
the winter circle generally sits, and gave an appearance of warmth to
the room.
If we add this piece of carpeting to the estimates for our room, we
still leave a margin for a picture, and make the programme equally
adapted to summer and winter.
Besides the chromos, which, when well selected and of the best class,
give the charm of color which belongs to expensive paintings, there
are engravings which finely reproduce much of the real spirit and
beauty of the celebrated pictures of the world. And even this does not
exhaust the resources of economical art; for there are few of the
renowned statues, whether of antiquity or of modern times, that have
not been accurately copied in plaster casts; and a few statuettes,
costing perhaps five or six dollars each, will give a really elegant
finish to your rooms-providing always that they are selected with
discrimination and taste.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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