Principles of Home Decoration Part 2

The rule given elsewhere for colour in light or dark exposure will hold good for service bedrooms as well as for the important rooms of the house. That is; if a bedroom for servants' use is on the north or shadowed side of the house, let the colour be salmon or rose pink, cream white, or spring green; but if it is on the sunny side, the tint should be turquoise, or pale blue, or a grayish-green, like the green of a field of rye. With such walls, a white iron bedstead, enameled furniture, curtains of white, or a flowered chintz which repeats or contrasts with the colour of the walls, bedside and bureau rugs of the tufted cotton which is washable, or of the new rag-rugs of which the colours are "water fast," the room is absolutely good, and can be used as an influence upon a lower or higher intelligence.

As a matter of utility the toilet service should be always of white; so that there will be no chance for the slovenly mismatching which results from breakage of any one of the different pieces, when of different colours. A handleless or mis-matched pitcher will change the entire character of a room and should never be tolerated.

If the size of the room will warrant it, a rocking-chair or easy-chair should always be part of its equipment, and the mattress and bed-springs should be of a quality to give ease to tired bones, for these things have to do with the spirit of the house.

It may be said that the colouring and furnis.h.i.+ng of the servants'

bedroom is hardly a part of house decoration, but in truth house decoration at its best is a means of happiness, and no householder can achieve permanent happiness without making the service of the family sharers in it.

What I have said with regard to painted walls in plain tints applies to bedrooms of every grade, but where something more than merely agreeable colour effect is desired a stencilled decoration from the simplest to the most elaborate can be added. There are many ways of using this method, some of which partake very largely of artistic effect; indeed a thoroughly good stencil pattern may reproduce the best instances of design, and in the hands of a skilful workman who knows how to graduate and vary contrasting or harmonising tints it becomes a very artistic method and deserves a place of high honour in the art of decoration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1, AND 2, STENCILED BORDERS FOR BATH-ROOM DECORATION: 3, 4, AND 5, STENCILED BORDERS FOR HALLS (BY DUNHAM WHEELER)]

Its simplest form is that of a stencilled border in flat tints used either in place of a cornice or as the border of a wall-paper is used.

This, of course, is a purely mechanical performance, and one with which every house-painter is familiar. After this we come to borders of repeating design used as friezes. This can be done with the most delicate and delightful effect, although the finished wall will still be capable of withstanding the most energetic annual scrubbing. Frieze borders of this kind starting with strongly contrasting colour at the top and carried downward through gradually fading tints until they are lost in the general colour of the wall have an openwork grille effect which is very light and graceful. There are infinite possibilities in the use of stencil design without counting the introduction of gold and silver, and bronzes of various iridescent hues which are more suitable for rooms of general use than for bedrooms. Indeed in sleeping-rooms the use of metallic colour is objectionable because it will not stand was.h.i.+ng and cleaning without defacement. The ideal bedroom is one that if the furniture were removed a stream of water from a hose might be played upon its walls and ceiling without injury. I always remember with pleasure a pink and silver room belonging to a young girl, where the salmon-pink walls were deepened in colour at the top into almost a tint of vermilion which had in it a trace of green. It was, in fact, an addition of spring green dropped into the vermilion and carelessly stirred, so that it should be mixed but not incorporated. Over this shaded and mixed colour for the s.p.a.ce of three feet was stencilled a fountain-like pattern in cream-white, the arches of the pattern rilled in with almost a lace-work of design. The whole upper part had an effect like carved alabaster and was indescribably light and graceful.

The bed and curtain-rods of silver-lacquer, and the abundant silver of the dressing-table gave a frosty contrast which was necessary in a room of so warm a general tone. This is an example of very delicate and truly artistic treatment of stencil-work, and one can easily see how it can be used either in simple or elaborate fas.h.i.+on with great effect.

Irregularly placed floating forms of Persian or Arabic design are often admirably stencilled in colour upon a painted wall; but in this case the colours should be varied and not too strong. A group of forms floating away from a window-frame or cornice can be done in two shades of the wall colour, one of which is positively darker and one lighter than the ground. If to these two shades some delicately contrasting colour is occasionally added the effect is not only pleasing, but belongs to a thoroughly good style.

One seldom tires of a good stencilled wall; probably because it is intrinsic, and not applied in the sense of paper or textiles. It carries an air of permanency which discourages change or experiment, but it requires considerable experience in decoration to execute it worthily; and not only this, there should be a strong feeling for colour and taste and education in the selection of design, for though the form of the stencilled pattern may be graceful, and gracefully combined, it must always--to be permanently satisfactory--have a geometrical basis. It is somewhat difficult to account for the fact that what we call natural forms, of plants and flowers, which are certainly beautiful and graceful in themselves, and grow into shapes which delight us with their freedom and beauty, do not give the best satisfaction as motives for interior decoration. Construction in the architectural sense--the strength and squareness of walls, ceilings, and floors--seem to reject the yielding character of design founded upon natural forms, and demand something which answers more sympathetically to their own qualities. Perhaps it is for this reason that we find the grouping and arrangement of horizontal and perpendicular lines and blocks in the old Greek borders so everlastingly satisfactory.

It is the principle or requirement, of geometric base in interior design which, coupled with our natural delight in yielding or growing forms, has maintained through all the long history of decoration what is called conventionalised flower design. We find this in every form or method of decorative art, from embroidery to sculpture, from the Lotus of Egypt to the Rose of England, and although it results in a sort of crucifixion of the natural beauty of the flower, in the hands of great designers it has become an authoritative style of art.

Of course, there are flower-forms which are naturally geometric, which have conventionalised themselves. Many of the intricate Moorish frets and Indian carvings are literal translations of flower-forms geometrically repeated, and here they lend themselves so perfectly to the decoration of even exterior walls that the fretted arches of some Eastern buildings seem almost to have grown of themselves, with all their elaboration, into the world of nature and art.

The separate flowers of the gracefully tossing lilac plumes, and the five-and six-leaved flowers of the pink, have become in this way a very part of the everlasting walls, as the acanthus leaf has become the marble blossom of thousands of indestructible columns.

These are the cla.s.sics of design and hold the same relation to ornament printed on paper and silk that we find in the music of the Psalms, as compared with the tinkle of the ballad.

There are other methods of decoration in oils which will meet the wants of the many who like to exercise their own artistic feelings and ability in their houses or rooms. The painting of flower-friezes upon canvas which can afterward be mounted upon the wall is a never-ending source of pleasure; and many of these friezes have a charm and intimacy which no merely professional painter can rival. These are especially suitable for bedrooms, since there they may be as personal as the inmate pleases without undue unveiling of thoughts, fancies, or personal experiences to the public. A favourite flower or a favourite motto or selection may be the motive of a charming decoration, if the artist has sufficient art-knowledge to subordinate it to its architectural juxtaposition. A narrow border of fixed repeating forms like a rug-border will often fulfil the necessity for architectural lines, and confine the flower-border into limits which justify its freedom of composition.

If one wishes to mount a favourite motto or quotation on the walls, where it may give constant suggestion or pleasure--or even be a help to thoughtful and conscientious living--there can be no better fas.h.i.+on than the style of the old illuminated missals. Dining-rooms and chimney-pieces are often very appropriately decorated in this way; the words running on scrolls which are half unrolled and half hidden, and showing a conventionalised background of fruit and flowers.

In all these things the _knowingness_, which is the result of study, tells very strongly--and it is quite worth while to give a good deal of study to the subject of this kind of decoration before expending the requisite amount of work upon a painted frieze.

Canvas friezes have the excellent merit of being not only durable and cleanable, but they belong to the category of pictures; to what Ruskin calls "portable art," and one need not grudge the devotion of considerable time, study, and effort to their doing, since they are really detachable property, and can be removed from one house or room and carried to another at the owner's or artist's will.

There is room for the exercise of much artistic ability in this direction, as the fact of being able to paint the decoration in parts and afterward place it, makes it possible for an amateur to do much for the enhancement of her own house.

More than any other room in the house, the bedroom will show personal character. Even when it is not planned for particular occupation, the characteristics of the inmate will write themselves unmistakably in the room. If the college boy is put in the white and gold bedroom for even a vacation period, there will shortly come into its atmosphere an element of sporting and out-of-door life. Banners and b.a.l.l.s and bats, and emblems of the "wild thyme" order will colour its whiteness; and life of the growing kind make itself felt in the midst of sanct.i.ty. In the same way, girls would change the bare asceticism of a monk's cell into a bower of lilies and roses; a fit place for youth and unpraying innocence.

The bedrooms of a house are a pretty sure test of the liberality of mind and understanding of character of the mother or house-ruler. As each room is in a certain sense the home of the individual occupant, almost the sh.e.l.l of his or her mind, there will be something narrow and despotic in the house-rules if this is not allowed. Yet, even individuality of taste and expression must scrupulously follow sanitary laws in the furnis.h.i.+ng of the bedroom. "Stuffy things" of any sort should be avoided. The study should be to make it beautiful without such things, and a liberal use of washable textiles in curtains, portieres, bed and table covers, will give quite as much sense of luxury as heavily papered walls and costly upholstery. In fact, one may run through all the variations from the daintiest and most befrilled and elegant of guests' bedrooms, to the "boys' room," which includes all or any of the various implements of sport or the hobbies of the boy collector, and yet keep inviolate the principles of harmony, colour, and appropriateness to use, and so accomplish beauty.

The absolute ruling of light, air, and cleanliness are quite compatible with individual expression.

It is this characteristic aspect of the different rooms which makes up the beauty of the house as a whole. If the purpose of each is left to develop itself through good conditions, the whole will make that most delightful of earthly things, a beautiful home.

CHAPTER VI

KITCHENS

The kitchen is an important part of the perfect house and should be a recognised sharer in its quality of beauty; not alone the beauty which consists of a successful adaptation of means to ends, but the kind which is independently and positively attractive to the eye.

In costly houses it is not hard to attain this quality or the rarer one of a union of beauty, with perfect adaptation to use; but where it must be reached by comparatively inexpensive methods, the difficulty is greater.

Tiled walls, impervious to moisture, and repellent of fumes, are ideal boundaries of a kitchen, and may be beautiful in colour, as well as virtuous in conduct. They may even be laid with gradations of alluring mineral tints, but, of course, this is out of the question in cheap buildings; and in demonstrating the possibility of beauty and intrinsic merit in small and comparatively inexpensive houses, tiles and marbles must be ruled out of the scheme of kitchen perfection. Plaster, painted in agreeable tints of oil colour is commendable, but one can do better by covering the walls with the highly enamelled oil-cloth commonly used for kitchen tables and shelves. This material is quite marvellous in its combination of use and effect. Its possibilities were discovered by a young housewife whose small kitchen formed part of a city apartment, and whose practical sense was joined to a discursive imagination. After this achievement--which she herself did not recognise as a stroke of genius--she added a narrow shelf running entirely around the room, which carried a decorative row of blue willow-pattern plates. A dresser, hung with a graduated a.s.sortment of blue enamelled sauce-pans, and other kitchen implements of the same enticing ware, a floor covered with the heaviest of oil-cloth, laid in small diamond-shapes of blue, between blocks of white, like a mosaic pavement, were the features of a kitchen which was, and is, after several years of strenuous wear, a joy to behold. It was from the first, not only a delight to the clever young housewife and her friends, but it performed the miracle of changing the average servant into a careful and excellent one, zealous for the cleanliness and perfection of her small domain, and performing her kitchen functions with unexampled neatness.

The mistress--who had standards of perfection in all things, whether great or small, and was moreover of Southern blood--confessed that her ideal of service in her glittering kitchen was not a clever red-haired Hibernian, but a slim mulatto, wearing a snow-white turban; and this longing seemed so reasonable, and so impressed my fancy, that whenever I think of the s.h.i.+ning blue-and-silver kitchen, I seem to see within it the graceful sway of figure and coffee-coloured face which belongs to the half-breed African race, certain rare specimens of which are the most beautiful of domestic adjuncts.

I have used this expedient of oil-cloth-covered walls--for which I am anxious to give the inventor due credit--in many kitchens, and certain bathrooms, and always with success.

It must be applied as if it were wall-paper, except that, as it is a heavy material, the paste must be thicker. It is also well to have in it a small proportion of carbolic acid, both as a disinfectant and a deterrent to paste-loving mice, or any other household pest. The cloth must be carefully fitted into corners, and whatever shelving or wood fittings are used in the room, must be placed against it, after it is applied, instead of having the cloth cut and fitted around them.

When well mounted, it makes a solid, porcelain-like wall, to which dust and dirt will not easily adhere, and which can be as easily and effectually cleaned as if it were really porcelain or marble.

Such wall treatment will go far toward making a beautiful kitchen. Add to this a well-arranged dresser for blue or white kitchen china, with a closed cabinet for the heavy iron utensils which can hardly be included in any scheme of kitchen beauty; curtained cupboards and short window-hangings of blue, or "Turkey red"--which are invaluable for colour, and always washable; a painted floor--which is far better than oil-cloth, and one has the elements of a satisfactory scheme of beauty.

A French kitchen, with its white-washed walls, its s.h.i.+ning range and rows upon rows of gleaming copper-ware, is an attractive subject for a painter; and there is no reason why an American kitchen, in a house distinguished for beauty in all its family and semi-public rooms, should not also be beautiful in the rooms devoted to service. We can if we will make much even in a decorative way of our enamelled and aluminum kitchen-ware; we may hang it in graduated rows over the chimney-s.p.a.ce--as the French cook parades her coppers--and arrange these necessary things with an eye to effect, while we secure perfect convenience of use. They are all pleasant of aspect if care and thought are devoted to their arrangement, and it is really of quite as much value to the family to have a charming and perfectly appointed kitchen, as to possess a beautiful and comfortable parlour or sitting-room.

Every detail should be considered from the double point of view of use and effect. If the curtains answer the two purposes of shading sunlight, or securing privacy at night, and of giving pleasing colour and contrast to the general tone of the interior, they perform a double function, each of of which is valuable.

If the chairs are chosen for strength and use, and are painted or stained to match the colour of the floor, they add to the satisfaction of the eye, as well as minister to the house service. A pursuance of this thought adds to the harmony of the house both in aspect and actual beauty of living. Of course in selecting such furnis.h.i.+ngs of the kitchen as chairs, one must bear in mind that even their legitimate use may include standing, as well as sitting upon them; that they may be made temporary resting-places for scrubbing pails, brushes, and other cleaning necessities, and therefore they must be made of painted wood; but this should not discourage the provision of a cane-seated rocking-chair for each servant, as a comfort for weary bones when the day's work is over.

In establishments which include a servants' dining-or sitting-room, these moderate luxuries are a thing of course, but in houses where at most but two maids are employed they are not always considered, although they certainly should be.

If a corner can be appropriated to evening leisure--where there is room for a small, brightly covered table, a lamp, a couple of rocking-chairs, work-baskets and a book or magazine, it answers in a small way to the family evening-room, where all gather for rest and comfort.

There is no reason why the wall s.p.a.ce above it should not have its cabinet for photographs and the usually cherished prayer-book which maids love both to possess and display. Such possessions answer exactly to the _bric-a-brac_ of the drawing-room; ministering to the same human instinct in its primitive form, and to the inherent enjoyment of the beautiful which is the line of demarcation between the tribes of animals and those of men.

If one can use this distinctly human trait as a lever to raise crude humanity into the higher region of the virtues, it is certainly worth while to consider pots and pans from the point of view of their decorative ability.

CHAPTER VII

COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT

In choosing colour for walls and ceilings, it is most necessary to consider the special laws which govern its application to house interiors.

The tint of any particular room should be chosen not only with reference to personal liking, but first of all, to the quant.i.ty and quality of light which pervades it. A north room will require warm and bright treatment, warm reds and golden browns, or pure gold colours.

Gold-colour used in sash curtains will give an effect of perfect suns.h.i.+ne in a dark and shadowy room, but the same treatment in a room fronting the south would produce an almost insupportable brightness.

I will ill.u.s.trate the modifications made necessary in tint by different exposure to light, by supposing that some one member of the family prefers yellow to all other colours, one who has enough of the chameleon in her nature to feel an instinct to bask in suns.h.i.+ne. I will also suppose that the room most conveniently devoted to the occupation of this member has a southern exposure. If yellow must be used in her room, the quality of it should be very different from that which could be properly and profitably used in a room with a northern exposure, and it should differ not only in intensity, but actually in tint. If it is necessary, on account of personal preference, to use yellow in a sunny room, it should be lemon, instead of ochre or gold-coloured yellow, because the latter would repeat sunlight. There are certain shades of yellow, where white has been largely used in the mixture, which are capable of greenish reflections. This is where the white is of so pure a quality as to suggest blue, and consequently under the influence of yellow to suggest green. We often find yellow dyes in silks the shadows of which are positive fawn colour or even green, instead of orange as we might expect; still, even with modifications, yellow should properly be reserved for sunless rooms, where it acts the part almost of the blessed sun itself in giving cheerfulness and light. Going from a sun-lighted atmosphere, or out of actual sunlight into a yellow room, one would miss the sense of shelter which is so grateful to eyes and senses a little dazzled by the brilliance of out-of-door lights; whereas a room darkened or shaded by a piazza, or somewhat chilled by a northern exposure and want of sun, would be warmed and comforted by tints of gold-coloured yellow.