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Page 84
84INTERIOR DECORATING
and general lack of satisfaction are created by bad grouping and inharmonious colorings even where expensive furniture and textiles have been employed. Next to the lobby the dining room and grill are probably the most important part of the hotel (except the kitchen, of course, which does not come under our present decorative consideration). My own opinion is that the excellent style created by the Brothers Adam has been used entirely too generally for this purpose, though when well executed it is always agreeable. It furnishes an excellent decorative ceiling effect without being too heavy, and it affords mirrors which are very ornamental without being overdone and lighting fixtures of considerable charm. Too often one finds the chairs in an Adam hotel dining room entirely out of keeping with the rest of the decoration. These are bought in a hurry from some dealer who has only one type of chair available in sufficient quantity, and so the discerning eye discovers modern bent wood and equally modern painted Secessionist chairs where one would naturally look for delicately wrought eighteenth century models, which might be more expensive and more fragile, but which certainly would be infinitely more appropriate. A trouble that is to be found with many of the other periods is that they suggest wood wainscoting for the walls and this is finished rather dark, giving a dignified effect but perhaps one that is rather too heavy. A good example of a light room done in the French manner can be seen at the restaurant known as Avignon, where the walls are cream set with mirrors in gilt Muntin divisions interspersed with mural decorations. At the restaurant Crillon we have
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The famous staircase of the Ritz-Carlton, near the Crystal Room. The style of Adam is again used, elaborately
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