Ready.

Here is what I have learned,
The first rule, Rule #1,
It must be beautiful.

The above is my cover of the decorated cabinet shown below.

This cabinet is in the Studio Drawing room of the Mackintosh House at the Hunterian Art Gallery, and the inside of the doors are decorated with inlaid figures of coloured glass.

The Mackintosh House at the Hunterian Art Gallery is a reconstruction of a number of rooms from Margaret and Charles Rennie Mackintosh's house at 78 Southpark Avenue where they lived from 1906 to 1914.




The original house and contents became the property of the University of Glasgow in 1946. When the house was demolished in 1963, the contents and as much as possible of the fitments and fabric were salvaged and reconstructed by the architects Whitfield Partners at their new Hunterian Gallery location 


The picture above was taken in 1963 shortly before the house was demolished. Number 78 is on the extreme left of this picture. Take note of the many steps leading up to the front door. 


This recent satellite picture shows the location of the original house circled in blue, and the reconstructed version shown circled in red. The house was in a bad state of repair, and was demolished to make way for new university buildings.



One of the consequences of the reconstruction means having to enter the house by the gallery, thus the front door is not used. This means the door is some five feet above the sidewalk
and without any steps, looks rather odd.

Sans Update 15th July 2011.

Reading James Macaulay's book on Charles Rennie Mackintosh, ISBN 978-0-393-05175-9, on page 254 James describes the interior of the Mackintoshes Hillhead home, and makes a comparison between the homes of their wealthy patrons, and the home of the Mackintoshes themselves. He takes a quote from Catherine Carswell's novel, 'The Camomile' page 169, { 'I have already told you that the Lockharts are wealthy people, and they think a lot of themselves and are a lot thought of for that reason alone.
At least it is difficult to discover any other reason for such a good opinion as is held of them, but in Glasgow this one reason amply suffices.

Their fine large house is furnished in the style that makes other Glasgow people dining there look round a room and tot up in their minds the price of the curtains, carpets, chandeliers, pictures, inlaid cabinets, etc., etc., so that when they speak of it outside they say with a solemn, almost religious expression on their faces, 'Mind you, the things in yon drawing room alone cannot have cost much under £5000!'
In the Mackintosh house there were no such indicators of wealth.}

There were no indicators of wealth, there were only indicators of talent.

Which today is a philisophical cauldron of emotional irony, since the furniture in the Mackintosh House is valued at several million dollars.

I'm not sure how CRM-MMM would feel about that.