class="tocti">Hand Weaving

244 X. Pottery 280 XI. Decorative Work in Leather, Copper, and
Other Materials 321 XII. Concluding Suggestions—Country Homes 366

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ILLUSTRATIONS

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HOME DECORATION

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I

INTRODUCTORY

THE STORY OF A HOUSE

To design, plan, and build a house is a task that rarely falls to the lot of boys and girls. In fact, it is not the common experience of men and women to build houses without the aid of architects, masons, and carpenters. Such a task, however, was recently offered to certain classes in one of the public schools of a well-known New England city. It was, indeed, a school problem, and yet there was something about it that seemed to suggest larger and more interesting things than are ordinarily dealt with in the school-room. It did not seem at all like some school work. It was more like real life; for all boys and girls must some day have homes of their own, and here was a chance to learn how the house, which is an important part of every home, is planned and built. It is hardly necessary to say that this work—or play, if you like that word better—was undertaken with genuine enthusiasm. It was a task crammed full of the pleasure of interest and of accomplishment—full of the joy of doing something worth while—from the beginning to the end.

The House a Work of Art.—One of the first lessons learned by these young builders—perhaps the most important one of all—was that a great many things have to be thought of in planning a house, if the thing is to be well done. It is not simply a question of deciding how many rooms one will have, arranging them in some conventional order, and building the house around them with whatever external features style or fancy may dictate. Too many houses, it is true, are planned, or at least put up, in this thoughtless fashion; and whatever goes into them in decoration or furniture is generally chosen either for necessary use or for display—not with any thought of the real