cypress. The beamed ceiling, the paneled walls, the built-in shelves,
the ample chairs and long tables are all of the soft brown cypress.
Here, if anywhere, you would think a monotony of brown wood would be
obvious, but think of the thousands of books with brilliant bindings!
Think of the green branches of trees seen through the casement windows!
Think of the huge, red-brick fireplace, with its logs blazing in orange
and yellow and vermillion flame! Think of the distinction of a copper
bowl of yellow flowers on the long brown table! Can't you see that this
cypress room is simply glowing with color?

I wish that I might be able to show all you young married girls who are
working out your home-schemes just how to work out the color of a room.
Suppose you are given some rare and lovely jar, or a wee rug, or a rare
old print, or even a quaint old chair from long ago, and build a room
around it. I have some such point of interest in every room I build, and
I think that is why some people like my rooms--they feel, without quite
knowing why, that I have loved them while making them. Now there is a
little sitting-room and bedroom combined in a certain New York house
that I worked out from a pair of Chinese jars. They were the oddest
things, of a sort of blue-green and mauve and mulberry, with flecks of
black, on a cream porcelain ground.

First I found a wee Oriental rug that repeated the colors of the jugs.
This was to go before the hearth. Then I worked out the shell of the
room: the woodwork white, the walls bluish green, the plain carpet a
soft green. I designed the furniture and had it made by a skilful
carpenter, for I could find none that would harmonize with the room.

The day bed which is forty-two inches wide, is built like a wide roomy
sofa. One would never suspect it of being a plain bed. Still it makes no