Social Life Part 79

Next come the broad, open windows. Better one window five feet wide than two of two and a half feet. Better for light, warmth or interior furnis.h.i.+ng, and better for the illuminating effect, upon the whole apartment.

Stairways.

Stairs are a necessity, and their comfort and sightliness depend on several features. Steps must be broad and deep, landings wide and windowed, if may be. If they must be crowded into a narrow hallway it is better that they be made deep and sloping as s.p.a.ce permits, and then inclosed with an archway and curtain at foot instead of a door.

This also saves heat. But where the great square reception hall can be devoted to them they may be made a thing of beauty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LOVER'S TALE.]

Woodwork.

Says one writer, "There is a widespread illusion gone out through the world that to have everything in a dwelling 'finished in hard wood throughout,' as the advertis.e.m.e.nts say, is the only orthodox thing.

Paint smells of turpentine and heresy." In this respect it is useless to deny that there is solid comfort in the permanency and genuineness of oak, walnut, or ash, that paint is powerless to give.

But the natural color of woods in many cases may fail to harmonize with the scheme of color to be carried out in the furnis.h.i.+ngs of the apartment.

In such case, the woodwork should be subjected to delicate, harmonious, painted tints, or polish or gilding, as the case may be.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WINDOW DECORATION.]

There is a great variety of woods from which we may choose, but to obtain from them the finer shadings and combinations of color is difficult, not to say impossible.

There is no necessity for making the woodwork that is to be painted unnecessarily substantial or elaborate. Woods such as white maple, holly, poplar, for the light effects; black birch, cherry, mahogany, for darker.

"One fallacy among people," says an architect, "is an immovable faith that the first duty of a human apartment is to look as high as possible. A cathedral, or the rotunda of the Capitol, must have height to produce an overpowering effect. But in an ordinary room of ordinary size, comfort, convenience and prettiness are more to be sought after than height."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Ordinary woodwork must be painted in such shades as will debar it from occupying the prominent position to which positive beauty is alone ent.i.tled. Give it a similarity to the ground of the paper, but a little darker, and the rounded surface of any fancy moldings, a shade or two darker. Paint the doors the same, except the panels, which may be decorated, in which case they must be painted the tint of the furniture as a background for the design. This may be very simple, a band of color, a vine in outline or flat color. Trace the outline of wild vines, or ferns, anything graceful. Originality is not demanded.

There are good reasons why window casings should start from floor or base, since in this way a visible means of support is given to the entire window, which otherwise has a suspended, insecure look. The panel underneath may be of wood or plaster.

Doors.

Doors are the greatest problem in a room. They monopolize the s.p.a.ce on the floor and wall that should be free for pictures and large articles of furniture, and otherwise completely demoralize the apartment. To do away with this inconvenience subst.i.tute heavy curtains whenever an impa.s.sable barrier is unnecessary; closet doors, for instance, and those between parlors. Again, doors that are much open may be made to slide into the walls. Then, for ornament and as a screen, the doorway may be furnished with hangings, costly or not, as the purse may dictate.

The outer doors are intended as a defense from intrusion from without.

It is not really good taste to have these doors of plate gla.s.s as that militates against the primal idea of strength and protection.

A Door Divan.

Chairs and sofas we have without end in variety and beauty. Every alcove and nook in every possible sort of room has been thought of and provided for except the one place that exists in almost every house and is the one place where people are always wanting to sit--that is the doorway itself. Folding doors between communicating rooms are seldom closed. An ordinary chair within a few feet of the s.p.a.ce never looks well. It shows its back to one room or the other and is in the way.

A divan is an addition to any decorative arrangement of either room.

It does not interfere with any graceful drapery that may be arranged at the door. It is decidedly useful, convenient and gives a certain touch of the unusual to the room.

An Improvised Bookcase.

A superfluous doorway or window too often mars the effect of a room, and the present day architecture, as found in cheap apartments and houses, frequently abounds in this sort of generosity.

To surmount the difficulty a very useful inclosure can be constructed by placing two uprights and a few shelves within the door jamb, or against it, as the case may be. Staining or painting them to match the rest of the woodwork is a small matter, while arranging bra.s.s rods and pretty curtains is not much more.

Screens.

Screens are a necessary object of household adornment. It is not requisite that they should be expensive, but the uses to which they can be put are legion. A plain frame of hard wood, or pine stained, rectangular, three or four inches wide and one inch thick, furnished with feet, and with or without castors, is all that is necessary.

Covering may be done with a great variety of materials, cheap or dear.

Ornamentation may be applied, embroidered, sketched, outlined, or painted. If the screen is made in two or three parts to fold like clothes bars, feet will not be necessary.

A rustic fire-screen is a unique affair, handsome and useful where there are open fires, as a s.h.i.+eld from heat in cold weather, and as a screen for the emptiness of grate or fireplace during the summer. It is formed from natural branches, two straight and two crotched ones, from which all the smaller branches and twigs have been cut away so as to have but little more than protruding knots. When these are well seasoned, rub, brush and rebrush, both with a soft brush and a stiff one, to remove from every crevice in the bark every loose particle of moss and dust. Then, with liquid gold, gild the bark all over, or, if preferred, gild only the bare wood where it is exposed at the ends and where the limbs are cut off, and give a touch of gold to every crack or protuberance, or, if a smoother finish is desired, remove all of the bark and smoothly gild or enamel the whole surface.

The screen, suspended from the upper crosspiece, is a fringed silk rug woven on a hand loom, as old-fas.h.i.+oned carpets were woven. It falls freely from the top, its own weight keeping it in place, but it might be tied to the standards--half way down and at the upper corners--with bows of braid, soft ribbon or with heavy ta.s.sel-tipped cords, or a smaller rug without fringe might be suspended by gilt rings and finished at the bottom with a row of ta.s.sels in mingled shades.

In a small apartment, where the radiator is an objection, hang on the wall over it a large picture, placing before the unsightly heater a screen of not too high dimensions. If a s.p.a.ce is too large for your picture, hang on either side a bracket, on which place a quaint jug or jar.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

For a sewing-room, or, in fact, any apartment where the weekly mending is done, a darning screen is wonderfully commodious. Its conveniences consist of two capacious pockets, to hold stockings or any garment fresh from the laundry and needing attention; a handy shelf whereon to place one's sewing, a tidy little cus.h.i.+on with scissors and loosely swung by ribbons to one side.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORNAMENTAL SCREEN.]

It is a delightful bit of property to serve one, while seated at an open window in summer time or upon an upper veranda with one's work, looking out over the sea with the perfume of flowers in the air.

Trim the skeleton screen to harmonize with the fittings of the room.

A carpenter constructed the framework for the two panels, with the bar across the top, and the little shelf for twenty-five cents. The pine used was an old packing box. The panels must be three and one-half feet high and eighteen inches wide, made of strips three inches broad.

The shelf should be eight inches wide and twelve inches long.

Four yards and one-half of chintz in cream-tinted ground, sprinkled with Dresden nosegays gaily dashed with pink and delicate green color, eight cents a yard. Four grades of delicate pink silesia and two and one-half yards of unbleached muslin for interlining, made an item of fifty cents. Hinges and corners and nail-heads of bra.s.s, satin ribbon and tacks, by considerable calculation, can be pressed into the amount of seventy-five cents.

A Sat.u.r.day morning industriously spent in the upholstery of the little screen presented it in completeness.

Screens can be used to protect from drafts of air, by day or night, to keep the sun from an exposed spot on the carpet, to shade the light from weary eyes, to temporarily close archways that have no doors, and to conceal a door that is not often used. They will divide a large room into two small ones when a sudden influx of company arrives, or even close in a corner for the same hospitable emergency. They make delightful nooks in sitting-rooms for the little folks' playhouse, or they may screen off, from the morning caller, a temporary sewing-room in the back parlor, and in sleeping-rooms, occupied by more than one person, a cosy dressing-room may be made by their use.

Draperies.

The new swinging portieres that have appeared have a handsome swinging crane fastened to the wall near the ceiling, upon which a portiere or curtain is suspended. This can then be swung back against the wall or swung out to make a cozy corner or to shut off one portion of a room from another. These swinging portieres can in many cases be made to take the place of screens and often fit with great advantage where a fixed portiere of the old sort could not be used.

The handsome cranes are of course more or less expensive, but a home-made subst.i.tute will answer the purpose very well. It is not exactly home-made, however, for the services of a blacksmith may have to be called in to bend the three-eighths inch iron rod into shape for use. The ends are bent to fit into screw eyes or other sockets fastened to the wall, upon which this improvised crane can be swung.

The portiere is suspended from the iron rod by rings.

Denim is one of the best of all fabrics for a portiere in rooms constantly used. It may be washed out and will look quite as well as new. If you want a variety put one entire width in right side out, and split another and join to the first section, putting the side pieces wrong side out. Sew the seams, then fell them and featherst.i.tch the outside of the seams in colored linen. Then with a teacup or saucer draw some circles, intersecting or lapping at one edge. Work these with linen in short st.i.tches and make eccentric lines or spider-web lines from the central design. The edges may be hemmed or featherst.i.tched or done in b.u.t.tonhole and cut out in scallops. It is better to have the edge of the facing instead of making a turned-in hem.

Then denim, as a floor covering, wears far better than low-cost matting and never becomes disagreeably faded; for, being made for hard usage, it but takes a quieter tone when other blues would surely fade into unpleasant, soiled-looking hues.