If such a suggestion meet with acceptance, those who undertake the work will find much practical help in the problems outlined in the foregoing chapters. It is not expected, of course, that the directions there given will always be exactly followed. In the furniture problems, for example, soft woods like pine and spruce may be substituted for the harder woods specified. Very attractive as well as very useful simple furniture has been made in this way at a merely nominal expense. Staining and finishing may easily bring it into harmony with colour schemes; but the bright, fresh colour of new pine and spruce is in itself by no means unattractive. The smooth, exposed beams of the ceilings and walls, if of well chosen stock, may be stained a beautiful gray green or a soft brown. A good colour suggestion may be found in the weathered gray of the hewn timbers of very old buildings. The effect of a ceiled-up wall or of a dado may be easily obtained by stretching burlap or denim over the studding or over a backing of inexpensive sheathing. These materials are very durable and inexpensive, and they may be found in a great variety of beautiful shades. They make excellent portières. A lighter, thinner material like scrim is better for window draperies. All these fabrics afford good surfaces for decoration by stencilling. Stained or painted soft wood floors, covered with grass cloth rugs or the more dainty hand woven rugs like those described in the chapter on weaving, with simple, useful furniture, a picture or two, and a few choice pieces of pottery, complete the equipment for a charming living room. If it all be the product of home industry, the cash outlay for the material need not be over forty dollars, though an outlay of ten times that amount for better materials would not in the least interfere with such a room being decorated and furnished by the unaided labours of the amateur artists and craftsmen of the family.
[Illustration: A fireplace in field rock]
The chief expense would naturally be for the living room, dining-room, and kitchen. The dining-room, however, may well be simply a corner or alcove of a large living room. Such an arrangement greatly increases the value of a single fireplace, which will be required to give the summer home the sense of perfect comfort. This may be of rough field rock and should be large enough to take one-cut fireplace wood. The chamber furnishings may be very simple indeed. Furniture dealers make a point of supplying beds, bureaus, chairs, and cabinets of simple design, unfinished, so that the purchaser may stain them to harmonize with any desired colour scheme. But such furniture, or good substitutes for it, can be made very inexpensively. For example, the stock for a good bed will not cost over seventy-five cents. Cases provided with shelves and curtains in place of drawers, made at a cash outlay possibly of one dollar, will serve for bureaus. The cost of materials for building an eight-room cottage in every way satisfactory need not exceed five hundred dollars; and such a cottage could be beautifully furnished by clever boys and girls at an expense for materials of one hundred and fifty or perhaps two hundred dollars.