In this article, you will read killer carpets selection tips for your sweet home. It will guide you about the best colors, size shapes, and designs for every part of your home.
In selecting carpets there is very often a want of care, a lack of judgment, and an absence of good taste. Carpets, generally, are the most expensive articles in house-furnishing and very great care should be exercised in selecting them, in order that they may be suitable in pattern, style, and colors, and of good quality.
The same authority which has been cited in regard to the economy of good taste makes the following observations about carpets :
"The trouble about many of the patterns on ingrain carpet is they are so badly mixed up that all true artistic effort is lost.
It is in most cases desirable, therefore, to select a carpet with a distinct design in one or two colors, or two shades of the same color, A prevailing tint is thus secured for the floor, the pattern serving, as a pattern should in most cases, merely to break up the uniformity, and to please the eye by variety.
If a very rich effect is desired a Persian pattern is the best, although this style is not seen in its perfection except in costly carpets. Some of the imitations of Persian designs in ingrains are quite good, however, and are infinitely better than almost any of the large patterns gotten up here.
A Persian carpet in rich dark colors furnishes a room very handsomely, and it admits of a greater variety in colors used on the other furniture than does a lighter carpet with less elaborate patterns.
For a small room a very pretty light carpet is a small chinchilla ground or a light gray ground with a delicate pattern of the same color, but a few shades darker upon it, and surrounded with a green or crimson border.
Another very tasteful carpet, which, however, is better suited for a hall or library or dining-room, is a flat ground of crimson, green, or dark blue, with a small, simple figure — say a fleur-de-lis or something similar placed at intervals of about eight or twelve inches.
A light carpet with furniture, wall decorations, etc., in harmony, gives a particularly refined and elegant appearance to a room.
In such a room inharmonious or tasteless objects are sooner noticed than they are in one less severe in its style; and although it is not difficult to furnish a room in this manner so as to produce an agreeable effect, care must be taken and goodly judgment exercised, in order that there may be a sort of artistic correspondence between all the different articles of furniture and the purely ornamental objects introduced.
Where richness of effect is desirable, a dark carpet, with dark walls, may be used. These will adroit of considerable variety in the outline and in the color of the objects placed on and against them, and in the furnishing and ornamenting of such a room a much freer play of fancy is allowable, and a little extravagance in matters of taste may be indulged in without serious consequences.
A room should not, however, be carpeted or papered with dark colors unless the supply of light is abundant otherwise it will have a somber and dispiriting effect, no matter how elegant maybe its appointments.
When, as is very commonly the case, there are two parlors, with folding or sliding doors between, it is the usual practice to furnish them alike If the rooms are of very moderate size or very nearly of the same dimensions, this is perhaps the best plan to pursue.
When the rear room, however, is much smaller than the other, and especially if one has an end and the other a sidelight, a very charming effect can be produced by contrast. The same pattern of carpet can be very often procured in different combinations of colors, one of which may be used in the front room and the other in the rear one.
Care, however, will have to be taken that the colors harmonized otherwise the result will be anything but pleasing. When the same pattern cannot be procured, in different tints, two different patterns of as near as possible the same size and of the same general character may be employed."
When a new carpet is selected it is essential to take into consideration the size of the room and the manner in which it is lighted- A large room, well lighted, will look better for having a carpet of large pattern and brilliant colors, but to put such a carpet down in a small room would be very bad taste, for it will make the room look smaller than it is,
A dark pattern in a small room is to be avoided for the same reason. A light carpet of an attractive, modest pattern will apparently increase the size of a small room, and add to the artistic effect.
The appearance of a carpet is always improved by a border There are cases in which a border reduces the apparent size of a room, but if borders of appropriate patterns are selected, this defect is nearly always obviated by the finish thus given to the room.
The cheapest carpets are much improved in appearance by the addition of a border. Dark colors in the border look best in contrast with light carpets, and dark carpets require light borders.
Be it remembered that cheap carpets are a poor economy. A few months of wear will render one threadbare. A good carpet is thick, closely woven, and pliable. Tapestry Imed with hemp, and Ingrain which is flimsy or woven with cotton chain, is hardly worth making and putting down.
So much depends upon the effect produced by harmonious colors in furnishing a house, that some well-defined rules are not out of place. As applicable upon this point we give the following from a recognized authority upon the subject of color :
The rainbow is universally acknowledged to be the most perfect and beautiful arrangement of color in Nature and maybe considered our ideal standard. Its colors were divided by Sir Isaac Newton into 360 parts, of which violet occupies 80; indigo, 40; blue, 60; green, 60; yellow, 48; orange, 27, and red 45.
These were supposed by Newron to be simple colors but Sir David Brewster has proved that from the three primary colors — red, blue, and yellow — all the other prismatic tints can be produced.
All colors depend upon the power of their substances to absorb and reflect light; in every ray of white light, there are the following primary colors — red, yellow, and blue, which, with their intermediate and extreme tints, constitute what is called the solar spectrum. Different rays are absorbed by different substances; in opaque, white substances none are absorbed; And in black substances, all are absorbed.
In particular, colors what is absorbed is complementary to what is reflected; thus, a blue sub- stance has absorbed red and yellow, or orange, which is complementary to blue; a yellow substance has absorbed red and blue, or purple, which is complementary to yellow; and a red substance has absorbed blue and yellow, or green, which is complementary to red.
Citrine, russet, and olive, with the greys and browns, are compounds of these colors, in unequal proportions.
Black results from a mixture of blue, red, and yellow, of equal intensity and in equal proper- lions. Colors are regarded as warm or cold, positive or negative; thus blue is a cold and negative color, and orange a warm and positive color. Red is neither warm nor cold. All warm colors are contrasts to cold colors.
Carpets last much longer when a lining is placed under them, than if put down without. It is made of various materials, but the best is of fine wool, stretched between layers of paper. It is moth proof; costs fifteen cents per yard.
If the carpet is of gay colors a rug or two of plainer appearance will add to the appearance of the room; or if the carpet is composed of dark shades, light-colored rugs should be selected.
Carpets are comfortable in winter and desirable on account of their appearance. In Summer the objections to keeping them on the floor are, they make a room warmer than it would otherwise be, they get full of dust, and seize upon and hold moisture and taints in the atmosphere unless frequently and thoroughly aired.
During wet weather in the Spring and Summer seasons, carpets always gather moisture; and if such weather continues for any length of time, and the rooms re- main closed, however tight the house may be, it is impossible to pre- rent dampness in your carpets. After such weather, the house should always be thoroughly aired, and in case a moldy smell is observed, it is advisable to make fires to aid in getting the house thoroughly dry.
When a floor-covering for Summer, other than carpets is desired, matting usually serves the purpose. Canton matting one yard wide at from thirty-five to fifty-five cents a yard can be procured. There arc other widths, a yard, and a quarter and a yard and a half, which come higher in proportion to the width.
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