Page 19

J U N E, 1 9 31 
LIVE
A room no larger and no more expensive than many,
is filled with friendly dignity and practical beauty
feast day gatherings, of friendly hospitality, of
T HE dining-room! The family's room! Scene of
hopeful farewells and glad reunions. Even more
than the living-room, the dining-room belongs to
your family as a whole. It is the one room in the house
where all of you are reasonably sure of being gathered to-
gether at least once a day-around the dinner table,
exchanging family gossip, solving family problems, mak-
ing decisions, figuring out ways and means.
Since the dining-room must serve as a backdrop for so
many different personalities, its decoration cannot afford
to be too personal. The cool, impersonal symmetry of
the classic mode immediately suggested itself, but we had
to be careful, because a too formal room would be out
of key with the kind of lives that most of us live. Besides,
we wanted our dining-room to be merry and bright; we
know that these qualities assist a good digestion.
So we went back to the eighteenth century and found
ideas from the English, French, and American rooms of
that period, combined them with some ideas of our own
time, and achieved a dining-room that seems to us to be
a happy blending of friendly formality and informal
friendliness.
The floor is linoleum-they never heard of that in the
eighteenth century!-deep green, in an all-over design
that suggests marble. It makes an excellent background
for the modern reproduction of an oriental rug which
covers the center of the floor. This rug was a good choice:
first, because the warmth of its texture is in charming
contrast with the cool, waxed surface of the floor; second,
because its design is small enough in scale, and mellow
enough in color not to conflict with the other patterns in
the room; and third, because it repeats the harmony of
the color scheme-the green of the background, wine
red and cream of the toile, the blue-green and cream of
the fringe, soft rose of the door curtain and rich brown
of the mahogany furniture.
T HE architecture of this room is faithful in every detail
to the Georgian tradition. The doors, the windows, the
fireplace and the corner cupboards, the moldings and the
wooden cornice, are absolutely right in scale and design.
Naturally all the woodwork is of modern manufacture. In
fact the whole room was built according to the plan of
the dining-room in the Curtis house called "Linden."
(Do you know that Curtis have house plans, full of good
ideas and lovely details-all of which can be bought from
stock?) All of this goes to show how easy it is to acquire
beauty, nowadays, if you only know where to look.
Think of the expense of having all this woodwork made
to order! Think of the difficulty of finding a draftsman
you could trust to design it! The manufacturer has gone
to all the trouble, he has taken infinite pains to create the
elements of a perfect room. We have built it in our work-
shop. Now you can see it on these pages, and decide
whether you like it or not, before you spend a penny.
When we say classic, we think of white woodwork, but
there is ample precedent for using color, and color is much
more friendly. We painted our dining-room a rather
deep blue-green, which makes a perfect background for
panels of wine red and cream toile, framed in narrow
wooden moldings. These panels give the scheme a human
touch without impairing its dignity one little bit.
The curtains are made of the same toile. They too, are
treated in a thoroughly formal manner, but are saved
from stiffness by the intrinsic gaiety of the material.
Notice that they are hung within the shallow reveals of
the window, and that they are made plenty full enough
to be drawn across the windows. DELINEATOR has always
maintained that skimpy curtains are the stupidest kind
of economy. The cost of the material saved is slight,
compared to the labor wasted on a cheap effect.
The windows are hung with Venetian blinds which are
really marvelous in their adaptability.  (Turn to page 46)
An almnost hidden radio produces dinner music
OV ELY
T
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Staffordshire fills the corner cupboards
Silver bowls of pale roses dock the tabk-
The green linoleum floor makes a shining
background for the mellow tones of this
marvelous reproduction of an oriental rug;
mahogany chairs in the Georgian taste have
saddle seats upholstered in blue-green rep
IDELUN EATORI
I IN S rT TUT E
A silver tea service, a hurricane candle globe
INTER       10  RS        . JOSEPH B. P L A T T, Director
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