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HOW TO REARRANGE OR REDECORATE A ROOM

To rearrange a room successfully, begin by taking everything out of it (in reality or in your mind), then decide how you want it to look, or how, owing to what you own and must retain, you are obliged to have it look. Design and color of wall decorations, hangings, carpets, lighting fixtures, lamps and ornaments on mantel, depend upon the character of your furniture.

If your house or suite is small you can gain a great effect of space by keeping the same color scheme throughout that is, the same color or related colors. To make a small hall and each of several small rooms on the same floor different in any pronounced way, is to cut up your home into a restless, unmeaning checkerboard, where one feels conscious of the walls and all limitations. The effect of restful spaciousness may be obtained by taking the same small suite and treating its walls, floors and draperies, as has been suggested, in the same color scheme or a scheme of related keys in color. That is, woodbrowns, beiges and yellows; violets, mauves and pinks; different tones of greys; different tones of yellows, greens and blues.

If you like your room, but find it Cold in atmosphere, try deep cream gauze for sash curtains. They are wonderful atmosphere producers. The advantage of two tiers of sash curtains is that one can part and push back one tier for air, light or looking out, and still use the other tier to modify the light in the room. Another way to produce atmosphere in a cold room is to use a tone-on-tone paper. That is, a paper striped in two depths of the same color. In choosing any wall paper it is imperative that you try a large sample of it in the room for which it is intended, as the reflection from a nearby building or brick wall can entirely change a beautiful yellow into a thick mustard color. How a wall paper looks in the shop is no criterion.

The question of placing photographs is not one to be treated lightly. Remember, intimate photographs should be placed in intimate rooms, while photographs of artists and all celebrities are appropriate for the living room or library. It is extremely seldom that a photograph unless of public interest is not out of place in a formal room.

Is your room small and have you made the woodwork a sharp contrast in color to yourwalls? You will find that in any room, to paint the wood-work the same color as walls adds immensely to the appearance of its size. Are your large pieces of furniture so placed as to give the appearance of balance to your room? And have you provided yourself with a sufficient number of easily moved pieces such as small tables and chairs, so as to form "groups" which suggest that human beings are expected to live in and enjoy this room!

Is your desk where the light comes over your left shoulder to the page you are writing? Are the lights in the room where they will be of best use? Can you enjoy your open-fire and at the same time have a good light to read by? If you play cards can you light the table and also the hands of each player? Has your room for informal use books and enough of them! Books and an open-fire are the ideal foundation for a home-like room.

See to it that your home, your room each one of them expresses the tastes of the family. This is how you make " atmosphere." It is wise to furnish slowly. Haste is responsible for most mistakes. Begin by owning good shapes and color-combinations, and as you can afford it, discard your things of no intrinsic value for beautiful shapes and colors with value. It is amazing what happy results one can get if one does not cling too firmly to the idea, often a fallacy, that some inherited curtains or rugs are "too good to dye."

If you really want to master the secrets of how to decorate your home be prepared to let go of some of your long-cherished views. House furnishing which is beautiful need not cost any more than house furnishing which is ugly or simply dull and uninteresting. If you would decorate give in at once and agree to follow the rules of the game: let the laws of decoration dictate to you when it comes to the " composition" of the picture (your room) upon which you are working.

Do you want to use only the furnishings you already own in the home you are about to arrange or will you use some of the old things and add new pieces or hangings! Or is your Idea to get rid of everything you have in order to make a fresh start with everything new? If only some of the old furnishings are to be kept and new ones bought to supplement these, the thing to keep in mind is that our choice when buying is limited by the possibilities of the old possessions. In such a case we advise first manipulating the old. When you have done all that can be done with them along the lines suggested ( re-framing simply the ornate mirrors on bureaus, and painting disfigured or discordant woods) go out and buy the new pieces of furniture, but select things which are related, in shape and general character, to the old pieces. The reader can see that what we aim at getting into a room is an effect of simplicity and restfulness. Begin your efforts at decorationg by having only the pieces of furniture you need in a room and not too many colors. Keep all your colors bright or all subdued; do not mix shades; a wrong shade of a color is like a false note in music. This is what is meant by having your " values" right when arranging a color scheme.

Is your room full of little ornaments and the framed photographs of many friends? If so take all of these small things (possibly souvenirs of your travels) and intimate photographs out of the now crowded room and use only a very few of each at one time. Intimate photographs belong in intimate rooms and if you will keep them all together, say on the top of your book-shelves, you will be surprised how the arrangement improves the appearance of your room. It establishes order at once.

Have you restful spaces between your pieces of furniture and are there some small tables with nothing on them, awaiting the unexpected need, as a vase of flowers, cigarettes, tea or after-dinner coffee cup? Remember that in any room which is attractive, simple or elaborate restful spaces and one or two small, empty tables are necessities. In music the rests have as much value as the notes. It is so in decoration. Is that impression of confusion one feels on entering your room due to the fact that your rugs are put down at different angles? Let them follow the lines of your walls. Is the design in carpets or rugs too pronounced? It should not be so. In the average home plain carpets or very inconspicuously figured rugs, which are in harmony with the color scheme are the things to choose. Keep all of the rugs in one room similar in coloring.

Are the lighting fixtures, frames of pictures and of mirrors in keeping with style of your furniture! They should be. How about the pictures themselves! Are they appropriate for the room in which you have hung them! Are they good of their kind? Have you been careful about keeping similar subjects on one wall! Harmony in house furnishing is not difficult to understand, and if you never violate this principle when furnishing, your home will be beautiful whether its furnishings cost the lowest price possible or a fortune. You can see yourself that if you make the mistake of putting into an inexpensively furnished room some wonderful antique, inlaid desk or raretable, suited to a room of quite different character, you will utterly ruin your"picture".

When you are beginning at the foundation and furnishing with entirely new things, your problems are fewer. But they exist. Don't make the mistake of thinking that decorating (even with endless money and time) can be successful if one starts in without a plan of action.

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