With regard to dining-room furniture, get a suite of some light wood--ash or oak--and leather seats to the chairs, or American leather. Sideboards of the present day are very handsome and rather elaborate. You can sometimes pick up very good second-hand dining-room suites, upholstered in the best style, for half their original price. If you intend to have a mirror over your dining-room mantelpiece, see that it is framed in wood similar to your chairs and table, and eschew gilt mirrors in any form, as they are the very acme of bad taste and vulgarity. In choosing the dining-room curtains, bear in mind the colour of the wall paper, or they may clash most inharmoniously. The cheapest way of getting these curtains would be to buy some tapestry stuff by the yard, and make them up at home. Everything in a dining-room should match, see therefore that the curtain pole, bell handles, and coal scuttle are all of the same wood as the rest of the furniture. If the drawing-room is on the first floor, with a small landing outside, cover the latter entirely with carpet, do not simply continue the stair carpet across it, it will look as well again covered. Should it be a good sized landing, put a square carpet down and stain the edges of the floor. By way of keeping out draughts, and making the hall and staircase look less bare than is usually the case, get some curtains and hang them outside the dining-room and drawing-room doors. Indian dhurries are useful, as they are so cheap, but the objection to them is that there are none made between 6 ft. 6 in. and 11 ft. in length.