September 19, 1943

Detroit News Quilt History Project; Michigan State University Museum; Susan Salser

Detroit, Michigan, United States

An Edith B. Crumb interior design column.

Exterior is White
Layout Includes a Small Greenhouse
By Edith B. Crumb
Interior Decoration Editor
The Detroit News
The morning room has soft yellow grass-cloth walls, white woodwork and medium blue carved carpeting. Chartreuse and cherry-red strike interesting contrasts in this scheme.
The floor covering of the dining room is reseda green and the walls are treated with tete-de-negre paper having a floral design in soft green, American beauty rose and white. The cornice and ceiling are soft green, and American beauty rose satin covers the chair seats.

"Dunroven," the year-around country home of Mr. and Mrs. Elmer R. Mistele, 34515 Twelve Mile road west, combines rural charm with all the mechanical equipment which makes for a minimum of effort required in executing the household duties, thus creating an ideal mode of living.

The house, situated a half mile from the main highway, has one-floor layout for the house proper and a large recreation room with bar and card room on the lower level, thus making the house two stories at the rear, for it is built on a slope.

Has Green House
On the first floor are entrance hall, informal living room, morning room, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, two baths and a three-room apartment for service quarters. There is also a small greenhouse attached to the house where Mrs. Mistele makes early preparation for her gardens.

The informal living room has knotty pine walls and exposed rafters. The floor covering is blue carved carpeting, and the window treatment is of floor-length draperies with flat valances of blue ground cotton material with scroll and ivy design in rose, white and green. White predominates in the furniture coverings which are rough textured fabrics. Doors which flank the fireplace in this room open onto a screened porch which serves as a summer living room.

Morning Room
The floor covering of the morning room matches that of the pine room, and the walls are treated with soft yellow grass cloth-type paper; the woodwork and dado are white. The ceiling is light blue. The draperies are cherry-red ground flowered chintz hung from white fluted valances covered with white leather. The chairs which flank the fireplace are covered with white ground chintz with rose design; and a cherry red wing chair strikes an interesting note.

Courtesy of The Detroit News Archives.