HOUSE DECORATING EXTRAORDINARY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 126, 13 May 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

HOUSE DECORATING EXTRAORDINARY.

WALLS PAPERED WTITI OFFBRJB OF MARRIAGE. In spite of the advance in taurto in the internal dero.ation of howsav, yet tlie average house-painter’s main idea is still to paint and “grain” all th» woodwork in the place and cover tin? wails and ceilings with paper or distemper. Occasionally, liowever, an” original occupier takes the job out of the hands of the professional wielder cf the painr and whitewashing brushes and strikes out on a new and original track An American beauty, for instance. bus papered her boudoir entirely with letters, being her correspondence since she put her hair up and 'came out.” She has covered the walls with ordinary epistles containing invitations announcements of her friends’ engagements, or other domestic o;cnrrcnces. and so forth ; wliilo above runs c frieze of .'nvelopes. But the piece de resistance in this instance is the dado, which is entirely composed of love-let-ters-lucky girl'—all arranged in chronological o:der, those containing a definite offer of marriage being placed nt the top to catch the eye. Not wishing to pillory the swains who had laid their fortunes at her toot, she had, at any rate, tho sense to cut off their signatures POSTAGE-STAMPS AND CIGARBANDS. A philatelist has a little room in his house entirely papered with old post-age-stamps This decorative plan has frequently been used in the making of plates, ash-trays, and the like, often ccmbiii'.’d with cigar-bands, but few p opie would be bold enough to contemplate the covering of the walls of even a very small room with such tiny scraps o! paper as the postage-stamp lepresentri Nevertheless, when it was completed and varnished it had a very unique . effect, and * who shall say whether this room may not, a hundred years hence, if these decorations still survive, bo a perfect treasure chamber “ There is a story told of a man who, during the making of one of tho South American States papered bis room with notes which han originally r.-pre e itc 1 thousands of pounds, hut were then not worth ball' as mmy Liilh'ngs. SOME ARTI'Ts- I AN; lE-. Artists very often decorate their own rooms. Mr. Cecil Aldin has mad 1 his children’s nursery a perfect fairy-land with his inimitable paintings oh the walls of the nursery heroes, stich as Polly Flinders, Little? Jack Horner. Jack Sprat, ami the ly.-t of the immortal company.' Sir F. Carruthers Gould has adorned his study with a very renmrkabb frir»i?, representing the modern Froissart. There you may see the pilgrims marching round tint room—tin l late 'Lord Salisbury almost too heavy a burden for his pati nt mule, and Mr. Joseph. Chamberlain, on a. particularly frisky donkey, ahead of I his lordship and turning round to tell ; him to “hurry up.” It is a very amusing decoration, and one in wliich all the great caricaturist’s friends take an interest. The late Lord Leighton’s house is open to the public, of course, and it is ar index to the artistic mind of its master, but not- everybody, by any means, has seen the interior of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s house. The hall and staircase art? unique, by the fact that almost every great contemporary artist has contributed a panel to its decoration. Tliero can bo seen masterpieces by great living Academicians like Poynter, Sargent, Abbey, and Marcus Stone, and such deceased masters as Orchardson, Swan, nnd Leighton.