[Illustration: _PLATE X_ A CHARMING TWO-LIGHT GAS CANDLE BRACKET IN WROUGHT IRON (EVERED)] Furniture and Decoration. The furnishing and decoration of a house must be left to individual taste: one person revels in colouring which would make another ill, but when we consider the matter from a labour-saving point of view, we should forbid painted woodwork. Natural wood should be used and mouldings forbidden. Who does not know the lines of dirt which form on the mouldings in which the builder delights? The wainscots, the window-frames, the doors, all are trimmed with mouldings. Fitted carpets, or, indeed, any heavy carpets, should be taboo. Parquet floors are delightful, but in most places linoleum must be the floor covering because it keeps out draughts, is easily kept clean, and is comparatively cheap. Furniture which cannot be moved without difficulty or swept under is objectionable: double beds are tiring for one person to make, and washhandstands can be omitted if there are a suitable number of washing-rooms. These are preferable, I think, to fitted washstands in the bedrooms. In the average house three washing-rooms would be required, one for husband and wife, one for the children, and one for the servants. When spare rooms are required each bedroom and dressing-room should have its washing-room. You may say that so many bathrooms absorb much space and cost so much more. [Illustration: _PLATE XI_ A MODERN INDIRECT GAS LIGHTING "BOWL" PENDANT. (EVERED)] A Clever Idea for a Bedroom and Dressing-room Bath. This idea has been carried out in a small country house known to me. Here the spare bedroom and dressing-room are 16 feet wide. Where the dividing wall would come a fitted washstand has been arranged in either room, back to back. The washstands jut out 1 foot 8 inches into either room, and are 3 feet long, leaving, if you draw a straight line to either side wall, and allowing for a partition wall, a space 3 feet 8 inches wide and 10 feet long. This space is enclosed on either side by sliding doors, fitted with bolts, and inside it a porcelain enamel bath is fitted. There is a ventilating window at the outer wall, and that piece of wall is tiled as is the floor. A large-sized bath measures some 30 inches across the widest end, and is 6 feet long. A small bath measures some 28 inches by 5 feet, so if the rooms were small and a small bath chosen a lesser space would be necessary for the bathroom, and part of the length might be used for wardrobe cupboards. In this house the water and the radiators are heated by a coke furnace, the house is lighted by acetylene gas, and the cooking is done by coal, and the cooker is so arranged that it heats servants' hall as well as kitchen.