@momelimberham Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm so glad that you are enjoying the story. It seems you are all unanimous when it comes to her dress, so as it stands right now, it seems you'll get your way. :)
As for rules, even I don't know where I got my rules from. I read through them, thought this sounds like fun, and ignored them LOL. Mostly, because as you say, they are quite often wrong. I read the 'no working women, no single women living alone' and went "I'll ignore that!" Because what did women do who had no family? They lived alone (or with other single women) and they worked for a living. And as you said, there were definitely both upholstery and wallpaper in the 1890s. Parquet flooring, however was a bit of a novelty, and only for those with money. I tried to represent that in the Whittaker home with the parlor, with the parquet floor around the edge of the room. That was often what people did, they put the new expensive parquet around the carpeting to make it look like they had the full floor (basically cheating). I just had to incorporate that.
Also, I've never been good at following rules in general. ;)
