The ideal is: A room with a washable floor with small, light rugs; freshly laundered curtains at the windows; a single, brass or iron bedstead, about 30 inches high, with a firm mattress, and so placed as to be accessible from both sides and with the foot in a good light, either by day or by night; a bedside table and two others (folding card tables are a great convenience); a bureau; a washstand, unless there is a bathroom on the same floor; one or two comfortable chairs, two or three straight chairs and a couch or _chaise longue_, all of which should be of wood or wicker or covered with freshly laundered chintzes. Barrenness is not only unnecessary but is to be avoided, for the room should be as cheerful and pretty as is compatible with cleanliness. There is usually no objection to pictures on the wall, but the room should be free from useless, small articles which are dust catchers, give the nurse unnecessary work, and occupy space needed for other things. Between such a room as this and the one which the nurse finds must be used, there may be a dismaying difference, and so once more she must exercise her ingenuity and resourcefulness; change and improve where it is possible and make the best of conditions that cannot be altered, for the baby is coming and the mother must be safeguarded from infection and other disaster, no matter what the room is like. Much as we should like ideally to equip and prepare every room to be used for a home confinement, we cannot overlook the importance of having preparations made with as little disturbance as possible to the patient and her household. Preparations made with bustle and ostentation are suggestive of inefficiency; are bad for the patient, frequently causing her great alarm, and in the main had better be omitted. The nurse who is able to go into a home quietly and unobtrusively and accept what she finds, even carpets and draperies, and still do clean work, is doing better nursing than the one who arranges a faultless room but upsets her patient and disrupts the household in the process. Common sense, judgment and tact, then, will sometimes be as important in preparing a room for home delivery as are washable floors, curtains and furniture. While we do not advise nor elect to have carpets, draperies and upholstery in a delivery room, we know that they need not menace the patient’s welfare if all details of the work about the patient, herself, are scrupulously clean. That is the one point which the nurse must bear constantly in mind, the paramount importance of clean work about the patient.