CARPETS VERSUS RUGS

Beginning with the base, as becomes a good builder, and working upward,
floor coverings which cover without covering, if one may indulge in an
Irishism, are far preferable to those which extend from wall to wall.
Carpets undoubtedly have their uses: they make over well into rugs,
supply heat to the feet, particularly in summer, and to the disposition
during the semiannual house cleaning. They also cover a multitude of
moths. But they belong to the dark ages of unenlightened womanhood
whose chief end was to keep house, and have been jostled into the
background by bare floors or mattings, with rugs. Hardwood floors
certainly are nice and seem to wear an air of conscious pride of birth,
but their humbler self-made brethren of common pine, stained and
varnished or oiled, answer the purpose fully as well. It really
amounts to a case of rugs make the floor, for if they are pretty and
conveniently disposed about it, the floor itself receives very little
attention. Small rugs before bed, dresser, and chiffonier will suffice
in a small room, and can be easily taken out and cleaned, but a more
commodious room requires the dressed look imparted by the larger rug.
Whatever its size, avoid large figures and strong colors, choosing
rather a small, somewhat indistinct pattern woven in the deeper shades
of the other decorations of the room, at the same time supplying a
foundation which, without calling attention to itself, becomes a good
support for the general decorative plan--a base strong but neither
heavy nor striking. Since we were made to stand erect and look up, it
is irritating to have one's eyes drawn downward by the unattractive
attraction of an ugly rug. The colonial cotton rag rugs are quite the
most desirable for bedroom use, from a sanitary as well as an artistic