Page 12 Advertisements Column 4

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 551, 2 January 1929, Page 12

(By ••PENATES”)

and colour of the furniture, carpet and hangings. We also know that, broadly speaking, strong colour is permissible in large rooms which would be outrageous in small: that colour varies enormously according to the light—natural or artificial —in which it is seen and that every shade of the spectrum is possessed of a reflective quality which varies from 4 per cent, in the case of black velvet to 90 per cent, in the case of a ceiling finished in flat white oil paint. With this bedrock of knowledge, as it were, in our possession, we feel fairly safe in the matter of essentials, and only come to grief over decorative details. CAREFUL MATCHING Very few of us are born matchers, and to sally forth without patterns of our carpet, curtains and chair covering material is to court failure. Supposing our carpet to be a plain moss green; our curtains petunia-coloured silk jaspe; and our chair covers of printed linen, having a bold design in green petunia and primrose. How easily, minus our precious patterns, our eye may be caught by a group of bril-

liant cushions, our purse opened by a persuasive salesman to purchase “the latest thing in lampshades,” only to find that these objects of our regard, which, in a showroom, look so spell disaster to our (green and petunia sitting rooms. Having once evolved a colour scheme, we must stick to it down to the smallest detail, and if our china does not "go" it must be hidden away in a cupboard. Even pictures should be viewed from the colour standpoint. Colour, though of vast importance, does not stand alone. It is not enough to have a good background and the right things—they must be rightly placed. This correct placing is more easily achieved if we have a bowing acquain-