When the Clemens family moved into their unique home in the Nook Farm area of Hartford, Connecticut during September of 1874, the building was not fully finished. The walls and ceilings were plaster on wood lathe, and the plaster had to cure for a year or more before it could be decorated. Thus, the plaster walls and ceilings remained bare, neither painted nor papered. Additionally, the cost of the house apparently exceeded Sam and Livy's budget, and by the time the initial curing process had passed, the family was unable to afford wallpaper and other decorations.

Over the winter of 1880/1881, Sam and Livy began serious plans to renovate the house. By 1881, following the success of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and several lecture tours, they had the financial resources and decided to enlarge the kitchen wing and redecorate major areas of the house, including "the walls and ceiling of the whole first floor." By June, according to Sam, "Everything is packed & the rooms bared ready for the decorators," but no decorator had been selected.

Sam wanted "Associated Artists," a distinguished firm of interior designers that included Louis Comfort Tiffany, Lockwood de Forest, Candace Thurber Wheeler and Samuel Colman, to handle the interior decorations. He asked Tiffany and Mrs. Wheeler to meet him in Hartford, but he said that if Tiffany weren't available, perhaps Francis A. Lathrop –a stained glass window artist – or Maitland Armstrong might be considered for the job.

Notations in Sam's notebook indicate that Sam and Livy may have visited the Armory of the 7^th Regiment in New York and seen the newly completed Veterans Room and Library, the work of Tiffany and Associated Artists. The long delay in finalizing the selection of a decorating firm and establishing the scope of the project weighed heavily on Livy. With winter rapidly approaching, Sam complained, "The unholy decorators have not yet begun their depredations, and Mrs. Clemens is in despair."

Louis C. Tiffany & Co., Associated Artists would be the decorators of choice. On October 24, Tiffany and Sam signed a letter of agreement "to decorate certain rooms in your dwelling in Hartford, Conn." This provides the clearest statement of the original scope of Associated Artists plans for the house. For the sum of $5000, Louis C. Tiffany & Co., Associated Artists agreed to do the following work:

Walls painted and stenciled

Ceiling painted and stenciled in metals

Woodwork decorated, or not, at our option

Marble floor stained if practicable

Walls and ceiling plainly painted

Doors stenciled

Woodwork painted

Walls and ceilings papered or stenciled at our option

Walls papered

Ceiling painted or papered at our option

Walls covered with metal leaf & stenciled

Colored glass transom to be furnished for upper part of center window in bay

Wall and Ceiling papered

Work began immediately. By the 26^th Sam could report, "The decorators are banging away here. Began yesterday. They've got scaffolding everywhere, but they make no prophecies; can't be persuaded to. But they are at work in an energetic way." The initial work by Louis C. Tiffany & Co., Associated Artists was completed early in January 1882 when they acknowledged receipt of Sam's final check for $2000 for their work on the first floor. By January, Sam reported, "All our rooms are finished & habitable, now - & there's rugs enough, you bet! for Mrs. Clemens has been to New York." But the fact that the rooms "are finished and habitable" did not mean that Associated Artists were finished with interior details. They now worked on specific projects that probably were not covered by the original letter of agreement.

In addition to the work mentioned in that letter, Associated Artists reworked the fireplace and overmantel in the Dining Room, "as the room cannot be made to look well as it is." Work continued with the delivery of "a case glass for over the mantel" in February, probably for the Dining Room, as well as a second piece of glass in March, this time possibly for the Hall overmantel.

Sam and Livy continued to use the services of the members of Louis C. Tiffany & Co., Associated Artists over the next several years, even after the firm formally split in 1883. Lockwood de Forest set up an independent company specializing in Indian handcrafts from workshops he established in Ahmadabad, India. Candace Wheeler had managed the "artistic needlework" element of Louis C. Tiffany & Co., Associated Artists for several years. Wheeler ended her affiliation with Tiffany in 1883. Taking the name Associated Artists for her newly established company, she specialized in "Silk and raw-silk fabrics, woven from original designs, for friezes, wall hangings, and furniture coverings. Heavy silk canvasses and sail-cloths, in carefully studied combinations of color, for portieres, and curtains." In January 1883 Sam approached Lockwood De Forest with an idea for the mantel in the First Floor Hall:

I have this idea: to paint the white marble (which immediately surrounds the hall fireplace the same strong red of the hall walls, & then cover it with Mr. De Forest's thin arabesque cut brass sheets, which will let the red show through. Ask Mr. De Forest if that can be done--& if some sort of beading will suffice to hold the brass sheets in their place? And can he send me sheets to experiment with, so that I can see if the idea will do and get the price. Of course I shan't cut or injure the brass in my experimenting.

Sam's experiment proved successful and in February he sent a check for $69.00 for de Forest's carving and brass arabesque tiles that remain on the Front Hall fireplace. In the fall of 1885 Candace Wheeler appears to have provided unspecified curtains for an unspecified location. This could refer to the portiere hanging between Drawing Room and the Dining Room that is attributed to Candace Wheeler.