Now in regard to the hall itself! It may be a difficult problem, but there is no excuse for covering the walls with dark figured paper or burlap which makes formed by continuing the tinted gray ceiling a foot below the ceiling line and finishing it with a narrow molding painted burgundy red.

Thin silk hangings of Burgundy red framed the ecru net curtained windows in two vertical lines and an ugly folding door on the opposite side of the room was concealed by long full hangings of the same. Beneath the windows, seats had been built in and they were upholstered in a substantial material of the burgundy shade. A Chinese rug of an inexpensive variety was dyed a deep shade of red violet and the contrasts in its design made an inconspicuous pattern in various degrees of light and darkness.

Small gray wicker chairs with straight lines and very closely woven backs were used, their seats upholstered in burgundy. They were placed along the sides of the room. In a little niche between the windows hung a small black and gold lacquer wall cabinet and below it stood a nest of black and gold lacquer tables. The cabinet served to hold papers, magazines, and writing materials; and either the top table could be used as a desk, or another pulled out and placed in a desirable position for reading or writing. Two large chairs upholstered in a black-grounded Chinese chintz with deep red and green figures, completed the important furniture. Practically everything except the two large chairs had been kept in vertical planes, and the chairs, placed with backs to the window on either side of the lacquer cabinet, broke the stiffness of the composition and gave the room an air of informality and livableness.

The furniture of this room, including the important services of the carpenter, amounted to about $225. The material and labor on the bookshelves, which were made out of quartered white oak, amounted to $40. The burgundy silk hangings for the door and windows amounted to $48. There were five wicker side chairs at $8 apiece. These were bought unfinished and painted gray at home to match the bookcases. The lacquer hanging cabinet and nest of tables were purchased at auction at a cost of $17 and $12 respectively. The large upholstered chairs were resuscitated from an old family collection and were reupholstered at a cost of $12 apiece. The rug, which was worth about $35 new, was bought second-hand for $13 and dyeing cost $5. The total, covering additional upholstery materials and labor, amounted to the cost of one of the rare Chinese porcelain vases which decorated the tops of the bookcases, and there were four of them! The creators of this exceptional room were not afraid to use inexpensive furniture when they found it served their purpose as well or better than the more expensive kinds.

Any attempt to make a satisfactory and homelike living-room out of the room provided for that purpose in the type of apartment under consideration, will be doomed to failure if its furniture and furnishings are not selected to fit between its doors and windows, instead of usurping all the available floor space in the be removed and with a back screwed in could become a separate piece of furniture.

Originally the dining-room in which this mantel was used had dark oak woodwork and red burlap walls. It was conceived by succeeding occupants as a study in cream, orange, and gray. Its transformation from a somber, narrow room into a bright, cheerful and pleasantly elongated one seemed scarcely less than magic.

The walls were painted delicate cream and divided into large panels with a small orange and gray stencil. The woodwork was white with panels and baseboard a light gray, outlined with a narrow stripe of bright red orange. The furniture was deep cream, upholstered in orange velvet. The hangings, too, were of orange with an embroidered band of gray on green satin at the bottom, and on the stretched valence. Plain filet net curtains, through the edge of which orange-colored wool was drawn, hung to the window sill.

Two little round stands took the place of a serving-table for which there was no room. They were covered with cool little green mats and held bright colored china. White lacquered window boxes filled with English daisies decorated the window sills. The rug, which covered nearly the entire floor, was a mass of plain bright orange.

When the dining- and living-room are closely related, it is a good plan to use the same decorative scheme in both, but with a different emphasis of color. When they are both small it will be found efficacious to resort to the scheme of treating them as one room described in the tiny apartment of the young married couple. There are many interesting varieties of draw leaf, drop leaf, and folding tables on the market which have the aspect of ordinary center or side tables when not in use and which can be extended to many times their length if desired. Any small side chair will replace the conventional stiff dining-room chair and there are paneled highboys and cupboards which make good containers for silver and linen and which do not look out of place in a living-room. Even if separated by a narrow hall these two small, evenly balanced rooms will provide a more quiet and spacious feeling than two unrelated ones, usually of crowded and conflicting furnishings.

The tendency to panel small dark dining-rooms in dark wood is a very general and thoroughly misguided one. It makes the room look many times smaller and many times darker, and it swallows up furniture giving it the appearance of a bulky, shapeless mass. These dark paneled dining-rooms are tremendously improved by several coats of white, cream, or gray paint, and a bright and cheerful atmosphere brought into them which otherwise would be impossible. For the hideous glass domes which are suspended from the center of the room and to which many a proud agent calls your particular attention, simple square or round silk shades finished with tassels can be substituted.