Woodwork should be employed either to afford an artistic contrast to the walls or should be conceived as a part of them - that is in the same shade. Woodwork which does not serve to increase the beauty of the background or which detracts from it, has no longer an excuse for being.

Bright blue woodwork with red orange walls, violet with yellow walls, pea green with gold paper, apple green with sea blue walls, or blue green with yellow orange, are very effective combinations.

Silvery gray woodwork with gray walls is charming, as is deep ivory with ivory walls. In the home of Madame Alda, the operatic singer, there is a delightful room with walls of steel gray sanded paper, dull-finished steel gray woodwork, and wonderful broad striped silk draperies of steel gray, soft yellow, and rose.

The appearance of a small room which holds large or heavily upholstered furniture will be found to be greatly improved by the use of walls and woodwork the same color. It provides larger unobstructed spaces free from lines which tend to conflict with the outlines of the furniture, and allows the narrow boundaries to retreat unobtrusively into shadow.

The introduction of mahogany strips, or strips painted the same color as the furniture, into white woodwork has a happy faculty of tying the furniture and woodwork together.

The simple rule that the floor should be several shades darker than the walls and the ceiling several shades lighter, is more widely known than conscientiously practised. The superiority of softly tinted ceilings and plain dark floor coverings must be obvious to a person with discrimination, although we still seem bound hand and foot to the old conventions of dead white ceilings and conspicuously figured carpets or rugs, which are fatal to artistic unity.

Whatever means is employed in supplying the backgrounds of the room, the essential point to remember is that they are structural planes and may be designed, but not cut up. All decoration should be flat and in straight lines. In the new decoration pictures are used to serve a distinct decorative purpose, and not merely hung because they are pictures. There is nothing so destructive of the good background possibilities of walls as a clutter of heavily gilt framed paintings. They appear like so many holes cut in the wall, and no matter how beautiful and interesting they may be in themselves, they destroy the splendid, broad, structural planes of the decoration and add little to their own importance and dignity. An excellent collection of pictures sometimes supplies the decorative nucleus of a room, but this is only successful when everything else is sacrificed and subordinated to them. The wall covering must be selected to display them to the best advantage, and should be severely plain or designed in panels into which they can be fitted. If frames are employed they should be narrow and flat and blended either with the colorings in the picture or the background. Bright gilded frames are incompatible with the preservation of the unity and solidity of the background, and are decoratively impossible. The other furnishings of the room should be slender and inconspicuous, and the effect of the whole much more that of a picture hall or gallery than a conventional drawing-room or living-room.

A few good pictures, preferably one or two, if chosen, framed and hung to emphasize some point in the decorative scheme, often give snap and finish to a room. Modern decorative pictures usually serve this purpose better than the older pictorial subjects, as they are treated more flatly and take their place better on the wall.

Plain rugs or carpets, or all-over figured patterns which give the effect of plain ones can be made to order to carry out any specified colorings for half the price of a good oriental rug. The Scotch wool varieties are the best for simple furnishings, and the thick velvety chenille for more elaborate ones. Chinese rugs can often be used with good effect when they present large areas of plain ground and simple designs. Only oriental rugs in which the color and design are thoroughly subdued are now used by sincere decorators. Above all avoid a criss-cross small rug arrangement -the bare floor is a happier solution.

In approaching the subject of furniture, it is well to remember that it is the general effect and not the individual articles which count in the decorative scheme.

To many people furniture is the Alpha and Omega of furnishing. By far the largest amount of the sum appropriated for decoration is expended upon it, and consequently its surroundings are often left in a makeshift or half-finished state.

Furniture is an important feature of decoration, but it is not an all-important one. Its value to the collector may lie in itself, but to the decorator it lies in its relation to its setting, which it may inspire or be inspired by.

Furniture is often purchased like diamonds with the idea that its quality makes it above reproach; or like a new frock or coat, its style dictated by the whims and vagaries of popular taste. Almost every consideration seems to enter into the selection of furniture, except its fitness to the individual use, the individual room, or the individual scheme.

The distinction and beauty of an interior are not dependent upon expensive or pretentious furniture. It is far more a matter of its effective use of furniture -which may be more easily accomplished sometimes with the simpler and more amenable types than the more elaborate.

For young people starting out in a rented house which they feel to be only a temporary abode, it is much wiser to purchase very little and very simple furniture and add money to their bank account, than to burden themselves with large and imposing pieces which make the gay and care-free air of the little honeymoon home impossible. These preliminary furnishings will not be an extravagance, as they can be utilized in the guest chambers and sun parlor of the future home.