Restoration Decoration Floor: Selection and Laying o£ Rugs and Carpets In nearly all rooms of the house, with the possible exception of entrance halls and sunporches, it is preferable to cover the floor with rugs, carpets, or other forms of covering. Floor coverings add warmth, dull the noise of footsteps, help silence any possible echo, and by their pattern, weave, or color, make an important contribution to the general scheme of decoration. Floor coverings should generally be considered as backgrounds for the furniture, and although patterned materials may be used, these should never be obtrusive. Strong color contrasts between pattern and field are psychologically uncomfortable to tread upon, and as a general rule plain-colored floor coverings should be subdued in tone. The floor covering, whether patterned or plain, should always have its color or colors repeated elsewhere in the room. A floor covering that is in a colored pattern usually will not permit the use of other important colored patterns on the wall or larger pieces of upholstered furniture. Plain rugs and carpets have been woven only since about 1900 and they have consistently grown in popularity since that date. Texture mottling, pepper and salt effects made by twisting different colored threads in the pile, and patterns produced by contrasting pile heights have served to give them surface interest. Jacobean silver before the Commonwealth differed little from the Elizabethan in style. Except for an occasional piece, such as a 22-inch silver-gilt rosewater dish with wrought decoration in marine motifs, and some repousse two-handled porringers, there was little fine plate produced during the Commonwealth. But with the return of Charles II in 1660 and continuing through the restoration decoration floor period, English silversmiths were active.

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