For young people starting out in their own home, it is also often wiser to begin to furnish on a very simple scale, in spite of family appropriations, because simple furnishings allow for a stimulating growth through gradual elimination and selection. Good effects in decorating are gained, to a large degree, by experience and experiment, and a large initial expenditure usually clogs future progress and thought.

Americans are frequently accused of having too much furniture, and this is not a surprising result of the wholesale way it is purchased. "Sets" of furniture are a peculiarly American abomination. Frequently the same number of pieces are purchased for small as for large rooms absolutely regardless of space or use, merely because they come in a "set" and there seems to be no way out of it. All the spontaneity and individuality usually goes out of a room when the stiff and formal furniture "set" goes into it.

A woman who boasted she had bought the furniture for her eight-room house in an afternoon spent many subsequent years planning how to get rid of it. Furniture, like marriage, if acquired in haste is usually repented at leisure. A slow and evolutionary selection is far the better and surer way.

The general type of furniture should first be decided upon, and then a few pieces very discriminatingly collected as a nucleus.

Modern furniture offers a wide and interesting choice. The pleasantly unobtrusive qualities of built-in furniture are coming to be more and more appreciated. In one modern New York residence the only movable furniture in the dining-room consisted of the dining-table and chairs; and in the living-room of a table, a fire bench, and two tall backed chairs. Sliding boards were placed in the wainscoting of the dining-room at convenient places where they could be drawn out and used for serving tables. Two built-in cabinets balanced each other at opposite ends of the room. They had solid wood panels and the shelves and drawers of one were lined with plush to hold the silver, and the other was fitted for use as a cellarette and glass closet.

In the living-room there were deep upholstered window seats beneath the casement windows, built-in bookcases, built-in settles and divan, and a built-in cabinet which opened up to form a desk.

Once more individual cabinet-makers are being employed in the making of furniture. Many charming old pieces have been adapted by them to modern uses and charming new ones originated, based upon the old. This offers one means of circumnavigating the "set." The cabinet-maker can build the one or two pieces of your heart's desire without the necessary infliction of the seven or eight other members of the family. Simple tables, divans, and benches are often successfully constructed by local carpenters after designs in old furniture books, or from the architect's or owner's drawings. Made-to-order furniture, if guided by a sense of fitness and proportion, has a distinction and individuality all its own.

Willow and reed furniture has undergone many interesting developments lately. The slender, closely-woven willow is well suited to the modern idea. It can be painted to accord with any scheme and takes its place well amid bright hangings and wall coverings. It lends a light and informal note to a room and is being used very successfully in summer and winter homes, and can be procured in chairs, tables, bookcases, beds, couches, sideboards, and cabinets. This modern willow is very different in line and texture from the usual loosely-woven porch or bungalow styles and must not be despaired of, if it cannot be obtained at the first shop visited.

Of the classic types of furniture, Sheraton, Hepplewhite, Chippendale, Jacobean, and the simpler French lend themselves well to bright modern settings, but unless one can afford the highest class of reproductions and can live up to the high artistic standard they imply in the other furnishings, they are not advisable. The cheaper adaptations are often ill proportioned and awkward and lend little character or interest to the decoration.

For the simple home the old English cottage type of furniture is much better adapted. In either the natural walnut, or oak, or in the painted variety, it affords many charming and effective possibilities. There are the Windsor, ladder back, or spindle backed chairs; the gate legged or oblong tables with stretchers; the monk benches, primitive chests, and settles, the bacon cupboards, bookcase-desks, farmhouse dressers, and the sturdy low-posted beds, side tables, and chests of drawers. And right here let it be said, that of all clumsy and impractical pieces of furniture the modern bureau with the attached mirror pivoted on ungainly uprights takes its place in the foremost rank. The old-fashioned chests of drawers with unattached mirrors are far superior in use and beauty and can be supplemented by a dressing-table, or a simple side table with a mirror. The removal of the uprights and mirror from the bureau often transforms it into a less offensive low chest of drawers above which an oval or oblong mirror may be hung upon the wall.

The misuse of antiques has led to a growing reaction against them. A few characteristic pieces, however, often lend a picturesque touch to a room, but they should be used sparingly to accentuate their interest and supply the keynote of the decoration instead of attempting to carry it out literally by crowding as many pieces of the same style or period as possible into one room.

The praises of painted furniture need no longer to be sung. It can be procured to suit practically every style of decoration and practically every purse. From the aristocratic French enamels in exquisite grays and deep ivories, there is a gradual gradation of less pretentious varieties to the gaily-colored, naive and delightful cottage pieces. The medium priced kinds come in interesting blue grays, dull yellows, deep blues, and black and are often decorated with bright colored outlines, stripes, or conventionalized bird or flower motifs. Some pieces of black furniture come with an attractive basket and parrot motif in red, green, and yellow. Weak and effeminate decorations, or over-ornamentation, must be very carefully discriminated against, however, as a little goes a long way.

There is no part of decoration so fascinating as the selection of fabrics - especially within the last few years when their quality and variety has been greatly improved and the price of charmingly decorative ones brought within the scope of even the humblest purses.

The brocades and damasks of the more elaborate decorative schemes are being replaced with crisp taffetas, poplins, and Jap silks, sometimes plain, sometimes in splashing stripes or bright modern designs.

Figured cotton and simple silks combine well with both the sturdy cottage furniture and the slender painted styles of furniture, and, if selected wisely, bring a gay modern note into any decoration.

The majority of figured chintzes are manufactured in England and are still based on the old English or Chinese patterns. They are usually strong and simple in design and coloring. Cretonnes are both domestic and imported and there are some very good and some very bad designs. One must be able to recognize the difference between the old-fashioned naturalistic school with its garishly colored fruits and flowers and the modern decorative school with its conventionalized birds and flowers in clear virile colorings on charmingly contrasting grounds. Block-printed, stenciled, or machine-printed jutes are durable, attractive, and practical for large upholstered areas and portiere hangings. Printed linens have a simple and naive character in primitive landscape patterns, or stiff little conventionalized floral designs on well colored backgrounds. The modern printed silks are highly decorative and there are handpainted silks which are designed and executed by artists with each piece signed by the creator. These painted silks are done in bold and striking designs which are well balanced but often not repeated in whole hangings. The paint is absorbed into the silk and its softness and flexibility is preserved. These silks can be cleansed with soap and water. For particular decorative schemes, or when a strong decorative note is needed, these painted silks are individual and highly effective.

Plain sunfast materials, denims, or awning stripes are practical and appropriate for the country cottage.

In decorating, as in any artistic work, it is necessary to choose a nucleus or point of emphasis to play up to, or work around. Either the walls, furniture, or fabrics can be selected to supply the predominating decorative interest in the room and the use of the other elements should be subordinated to it. That is, if you choose to have striking walls, you should employ simply designed furniture and hangings. If the furniture is important, the walls and fabrics should be comparatively plain; while highly decorative hangings call for unconflicting furniture and walls.