HOME LIBRARY FURNITURE

A library in ordinary family life has two parts to play. It is not only to hold books, but to make the family at home in a literary atmosphere. Such a room is apt to be a fascinating one by reason of this very variety of use and purpose, and because it is a centre for all the family treasures. Books, pictures, papers, photographs, bits of decorative needlework, all centre here, and all are on most orderly behavior, like children at a company dinner. The color of such a room may, and should, be much warmer and stronger than that of a parlor pure and simple, the very constancy and hardness of its use indicating tints of strength and resistance; but, keeping that in mind, the rules for general use of color and harmony of tints will apply as well to a room used for a double purpose as for a single. Of course the furniture should be more solid and darker, as would be necessary for constant use, but the deepening of tones in general color provides for that, and for the use of rugs of a different character. In a room of this kind perhaps the best possible effect is produced by the use of some textile as a wall-covering, as in that case the same material with a contrasted color in the lining can be used for curtains, and to some extent in the furniture. This use of one material has not only an effect of richness which is due to the library of the house, but it softens and brings together all the heterogeneous things which different members of a large family are apt to require in a sitting-room.

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