THIRD ROOMS
I have already discussed one manner of disposing of the usual third
room, but I hope most devoutly that the unparalleled sacrifice of
devoting it to the use of the maids may never be required of anyone. For
unless people can sit in their dining-room in the morning; and I cannot
imagine anything more distasteful; the drawing-room or parlour must be
turned into a regular hack room, and we are deprived at one fell swoop
of a nice place in which to receive our guests or of a fresh chamber for
use in the evening. It is a great thing to have entirely different
surroundings then, and a pretty, well-aired and ventilated room in which
to spend the fag end of a day. Circumstances must always govern cases,
and there can be no set rules for the universal regulation of all
lives, and if English people would only realise this fact, their sojourn
here would be made far more interesting than it is at present. No one
has ever taken the third room for the maids, therefore no one can ever
do so. The door has always been in that position, therefore it must
remain so. That room has always been draughty, therefore draughty it
shall continue until the end of the chapter. These are the arguments
used, if argument of any kind is allowed. As a rule the position is
accepted unconditionally, and because an error has been made from the
first, it is allowed to continue unchecked when a little forethought
would circumvent that special mistake, and would make a room charming,
habitable and warm, which hitherto has been nothing of the kind.
Let me illustrate what I mean by an example. At a small house we possess
in Watford there is the third room in question, which has been made into
a very pretty library by the clever hand of Mr Arthur Smee, but which
the first year we were in possession had never been used save as a home
for books and a reception place for anyone who might come on business.
No one had ever sat there, nor could I discover anyone who would; but I
myself was then ‘on the shelf,’ and had never entered the room at all,
being often absent from home, and always, whether there or elsewhere,
confined to the circumscribed area of my own bed and sitting-rooms. I
had asked questions about the room but could never get a satisfactory
reply only the ever-repeated answer, ‘Oh, it looks all right, but just
you try to sit there, that’s all, you’ll soon see why we can’t do
anything of the kind.’ Now here is the room produced just as it was
before I went into it, and I wonder if anyone can see the real mistake
in the design? I own I could not perceive it from the picture. At first
I asked if my people were ridiculous enough to fancy the room had a
ghost. No not a ghost exactly; but in a tentative tone of voice
something quite as uncanny and quite as intangible. Was it draughty?
They didn’t think so; and yet it was impossible to warm it. In fact, it
was quite out of the question that it could be sat in, and there it
remained until one day
[Illustration: LIBRARY AT WAYSIDE.]
when I felt rather better than usual, and went downstairs determined to
conquer or die in the attempt. Dear readers! if you could only have seen
that room you would, some of you, never have believed in me again for
one single moment. The centre table was heaped with books, old papers
and magazines. The matting on the floor had one long, thin and solitary
rug. There were aimless cretonne curtains at the window, which couldn’t
possibly be reached, because the desk was stuck right against it; and,
worst fault of all, the door opened on the wrong side, and so whenever
it was open the fire was as it were in the passage. And as had been
rightly said, there was not a single place to put a chair; and, indeed,
the untidy thing in the photograph was the only specimen of the genus
that the chamber possessed, if we except an ordinary bedroom seat, and
another of a similar kind by the desk, neither of which could be sat
upon, save by an individual who had serious writing to do. Then someone
had placed in one corner a deck-lounge, in, I suppose, a feeble attempt
at being happy, and never did a lounge less deserve its name. It was
located between the window and the fire, and therefore succeeded in
nothing, save in being entirely out of place and in the way. There too
the shelves for books were left as shown in the photograph, and had none
of the small curtains over the smaller recesses, so necessary to break
up the lines and to serve as hiding-places for old and way-worn
literature. The fireplace was hideous, and a Moloch as regards coal,
while, of course the room could never be brought above freezing pitch,
because of the relative positions of the fireplace, door, and window,
each of which was put just exactly where it ought not to be. The design
and colour of the room were right enough, but the touches which turn a
room into a habitation were never more conspicuous by their absence.
I don’t know how it is, but I can put a room straight in five minutes
when another person merely grumbles and declares that nothing can be
done; and in a pious rage I set to work and very soon had made a
considerable alteration in the place. Although, of course, much could
not be accomplished until I sent for my factotum Joe, and had the door
moved to the other side, that elegant plaster in the ceiling dislodged,
and the hideous tiles in the grate renovated. Then I had a good thick
_portière_ placed inside the door, hung the pictures properly, arranged
the books and china, put the curtains where they were required in the
bookcase, altered the window-curtains, put the desk on one side, not in
the very centre of the window, and imported a couple of deep, good
basket-chairs from Heelas, of Reading, and some smaller Liberty chairs
and tables. The centre table was put on one side, and not in the middle
of the room, with magazines and newspapers; and after that I put down
proper and suitable rugs, instead of the big one,--beautiful in itself
and in its proper place which was a passage--but ridiculous in the
middle of a matted floor, where it resembled nothing so much as a garden
walk. Since then the room has been more used than any other sitting-room
in the house, and is now pronounced one of the most comfortable in the
dreary little place, or, I should say, in what was a dreary little place
until it was taken vigorously in hand. Albeit, nothing can make the
house a real success, because it is built east and west, and with all
the windows to the west and to the north and south: these, by the way,
raking the back yards of the neighbours fore and aft: while, except for
the bath-room window, there is not one which looks towards the east,
where, of course, one gets the pleasantest view and the morning sun: a
great consideration in a house which is literally a summer house, and
where therefore, the western sun is useless and tormenting. Even in the
winter an afternoon sun is no earthly use, for by the time it comes
round to the western windows it has to retire ignominiously into a bank
of fog or cloud; therefore such a house as this especial one should
never be taken unless the owner will close the north and north-west
windows, and open out big square bows on the south and south-eastern
aspect in the manner the windows should have been placed when the house
was built. It is always a pleasing reflection to me that the man who
designed this house is dead, and cannot now make any other person as
miserable by his awkward vagaries as he has made me. If he had simply
consented to one or two alterations, and had given us decent grates, and
proper servants’ accommodation, the house wouldn’t have been ‘half bad,’
and I do not suppose would have cost a farthing more to build than it
cost at first. The cornices were so terrible that they had in some cases
to be cut away and reduced to one-fourth, while the elaborate and
expensive style in which they had been liberally picked out in all the
colours of the rainbow, was obliterated by colour-wash at once; yet the
money spent on this ‘decoration’ would have gone some way towards new
grates; and my pet plain wooden mantels would not have cost half what
the monstrous marble ones did, with which one can’t wrestle, because of
the round openings in the mantelpieces, which would not allow of the
cheap introduction of the pretty, square, slow-combustion stoves, with
plain tiles, to which I must confess I am absolutely devoted. I think,
if their third room in any way resembles the one illustrated here, this
picture will help my readers very much, if they are anxious to have a
library, a room where the master can sit and smoke, and where business
people can be interviewed. But, if books are not plentiful, and the
husband doesn’t smoke and is not much at home, the room would not be of
very much service to the mistress and her girls, should she be fortunate
enough to be the proud possessor of grown-up daughters. And there are,
of course, yet other means of treating and disposing of the room. If
children are numerous, and bedrooms few, this third room may have to be
taken for schoolroom purposes, or, at best, may have to be used by boys
and girls in the holidays, or when lessons have to be prepared, and in
this case it would require quite different treatment to what it would
receive were it merely a pretty sitting-room, as it should most
undoubtedly be.
If the sitting-room aspect has to be considered it should be made as
bright and charming as possible, and should be furnished with an eye to
the particular occupation of the house mistress, who is sure to have
some idiosyncrasy, and will either work, write or ‘housekeep’
indefatigably. If she does this latter, she will want room for her
household books, her receipt books, and her house books, containing all
kinds of hints as to what to do and when to do it, which any woman
collects if she is in the least house-proud and anxious to make the most
of her surroundings. In this case, one of the recesses could be fitted
with shelves on the same principle as those shown in the photograph, but
they should not be higher than the mantelpiece, and where there is a
gaping space, curtains should be hung, or else doors placed to make a
species of cupboard with copper hinges and a good lock. In the other
recess a writing-table could be placed, with some shelves above it to
hold books of reference, and this table must be furnished with really
good locks, for here should be kept account and cheque books, and
receipts and any private unanswered letters. Though let me once more
impress on all my readers never to keep any save business letters, and
never to keep those when the business to which they refer is completely
done with and ended. No one knows how long he or she may live, nor if
sudden death or illness may not leave all one’s secrets, should one
have any, or the secrets of others, open to anyone who may have access
to one’s belongings; besides, we have no right to keep other folk’s
letters, once they are replied to. We may ourselves be secrecy itself,
but we cannot answer for the secret-keeping capacity of our nearest and
dearest.
If the window should be, as I hope it may be, one of the delightful
Caldecott ones, it should have a straight window-seat arranged exactly
as in this sketch, and thus we should be provided with a most
comfortable place to rest in, more especially if we supplement it with
several big Liberty pillows. These can be covered in plain linen covers,
edged with frills of the same or of Torchon lace. If this latter be
used, a wide insertion should be laid on all round the pillows, about an
inch from where the lace is sewn on. The lace must not be too full. If
the pillow should be a yard square, or the more ordinary size of
three-quarters of a yard, the quantity of lace used should be one-half
longer than the length of the sides of the pillow, _i.e._, 6 yards of
lace would be wanted for a pillow the sides of which measured 4 yards,
while 3 yards would be sufficient for the smaller size, as the lace is
only just fulled on. It should not be heavily gathered, or it will not
look well.
[Illustration]
Beautiful pillows can be made by Miss Goodban, of 9 Westbourne Terrace
Road, Hyde Park of these same linens. She embroiders them all over in
flax and edges them with Torchon, and if these cases are simply
buttoned on like an ordinary pillowcase they can be washed in an hour
and replaced. Liberty silk covers also wash splendidly if one has a
careful maid. I have never sent mine to the ordinary wash; but washed at
home they came out of the trial as good as new; a fact I do not think
many people can know, or we should not see as many dirty covers as we do
in the houses of folks who ought to know a great deal better. The
window-seat cover should be of some hard-wearing material, such as
ribbed and stamped Victoria cord, or a really good all-wool tapestry. It
is never the least use to use one of the cheap tapestries provided so
lavishly nowadays for this purpose, for if we do, we shall at once be
terribly disappointed by the effect. For these seats in most rooms have
a great deal of wear and in consequence if a cheap stuff is used it will
not last any time. To ensure real and satisfactory length of days for
any material, we must have one made of all wool, and not wool and cotton
mixed. The actual expense of these seats, and indeed of any fitted
seat, is the upholstress’s time and work, which costs as much if the
material is only 1s. a yard, as it does if one pays a guinea for the
same amount, besides which there is the continual worry of the British
workman amongst us. Though why women should not be their own
upholstresses I for one can’t think, and I should strongly advise any
girl about to marry on limited means to learn to make up her own covers
and cushions as well as how to cook the dinner. Then if the husband has
a knowledge of carpentering and is handy about the house, the place can
always look nice at one-third the expense it would cost were a workman
or workwoman sent for when the smallest alterations were required.
Given the window-seat there should be no need for a sofa, and that is a
decided consideration, but whatever chairs are had they should be
comfortable ones, and none are better than the excellent wicker ones of
which I have so often spoken. If expense be a great object one can
frequently buy these chairs from travelling hawkers who go about the
country with vans of chairs tables and baskets, and sell these special
chairs for about 5s. or 6s. in wicker, simply stained a faint brown,
which said staining I much prefer to paint or enamel, as it never
becomes in the least shabby. A cushion must be made to fit the seat
finished off with a 4 or 5 inch frill, not any deeper, and another
cushion must be made to fit the back, while another must be placed round
the sides of the chair, properly stuffed and ‘buttoned down.’ This said
buttoning down can be done by an amateur if she purchases the proper
needles for the purpose and secures the buttons with very strong
packthread. And I consider such cushions should all be made in this
style, as a plain surface wears out twice as soon as one that is
arranged with buttons; while, if one is clean and careful, the buttons
need not mean an accumulation of dust and dirt, both being got rid of
perfectly well if the cushions are properly brushed and beaten and
attended to by a housemaid who knows her work. By the way, it takes 2¼
yards of double-width material to make a cover for an ordinary wicker
chair, or 4½ of single width material or of cretonne, but I cannot
advise cretonne for the purpose, or for any real hard wear on any
chairs, it so very soon becomes dirty, and is always in the wash-tub and
in the hands of the upholstress. If the room is very tiny the
window-seat can be furnished with three deep drawers in which we can
keep any amount of odds and ends. Of course, the number of the drawers
will depend on the length of the window-seat, but three should be the
outside number. In any case they would come just under the seat and be
hidden from observation either by the deep frill or a woollen fringe,
and should open and shut very easily indeed. In a small house these
drawers would be invaluable for one of the principal drawbacks to a
suburban residence is the fact that there are no cupboards in them,
neither are there many recesses which we can utilise as wardrobes should
we require to do so. Let us suppose that this special room is given over
to the mistress of the house and that she is content to have the
ever-delightful shade of ‘Panton’ blue, than which nothing is better in
every way to live with, she would then have the short curtains shown in
the picture of some yellow material, Wallace’s diamond serge for
choice, lined with sateen or plain serge, if there be many draughts or
very much sun: then the material for the window-seat should be in golden
brown or turquoise blue stamped Victoria cord, and the cushions should
be in yellow, blue and pink linen, worked in very coarse and thick real
flax by Miss Goodban. If the room has very much traffic, the floor
should have a surround of plain brown cork carpet, with a good blue
square of Wallace’s Dunelm carpet in the centre, just lightly fastened
down in such a manner that it can be easily removed for shaking.
Personally, I never like nails put in any carpet; they cannot help
spoiling and tearing it, and it is far better to sew on the carpet
itself a succession of tiny bits of tape, of course on the wrong side,
and close to the edge. In these pieces of tape should the nails be
placed. The tapes can always be renewed, and in this case the edge of
the carpet is never touched, and cannot present the ‘worried’ appearance
which characterises so many really good floor coverings. In this special
room the carpet should be in a special shade of blue, which would
harmonise with the paper. There are two or three different ways of
treating the walls of such a room, and the one I prefer is to have
electric turquoise Aspinall for all the paint, the Panton blue paper,
and a floral frieze with a great deal of yellow in it; or, again, one
can have the blue paper, but with real ivory paint, and an anaglypta
dado painted in the same shade instead of the frieze; while a really
useful and hard-wearing room may have a soft brown dado, and all soft
brown paint, and a darker blue paper. In this case both paper and paint
must be selected by someone who understands the science of colour. The
brown should have a good deal of cream in it, and the blue should have a
great deal of indigo and not any shade of green or turquoise at all.
Here the window-seat cushion should be covered in brown stamped Victoria
cord, and the curtains should be in blue serge or Tanjore cloth. I have
never yet found a blue serge which would stand sun, and not fade in a
couple of weeks in the most distressing manner, while almost any yellow
serge stands the sunshine, and I can myself guarantee Wallace’s diamond
serge in yellow, for that has proved itself absolutely fast. Shoolbred
guarantees the Tanjore cloth, but personally I have had no experience of
this material, having had neither opportunity nor occasion to try it. It
is 4s. 9d. a yard, and is very pretty to look at; and is besides a most
excellent width. Need I say that any cornice in this room must be simply
coloured cream, and the ceiling papered in some inexpensive and pretty
yellow and white paper? If blue should be objected to, or one is tired
of it, a very pretty sitting-room can be made from any floral paper
which is really good, and, _I_ say, hand-made. I am devoted to a
beautiful heliotrope and green clematis paper sold by Smee & Cobay, and
also to the ‘ragged robin’ paper sold by Haines, and either of these
papers should be used above a dado of some kind or other. A full green
sateen curtain dado is the best, and in this case all the paint should
be the same shade of green as that chosen for the dado, and that should
be one of the tints in the leaves on the paper itself. Then the carpet
and curtains should be green, and so should be the window-seat and the
ceiling paper. The other shades in the paper should appear in the
cushions and table-covers: although as regards the clematis paper I have
never come across any good heliotrope materials, and have only found
this colour in silk and in a capital cretonne sold by the Cavendish
House Company, Cheltenham. I fancy that Warings, of Liverpool, have also
a good ‘lilac’ cretonne. They certainly possess an admirable wall-paper
with lilacs on a striped background, which should not be forgotten by
anyone who thinks of using that always satisfactory decorative harmony
of heliotrope and green. If there is not much wear in these rooms, I
should advise the green ‘Isis’ matting as a background for rugs, but if
there be a great deal of traffic, the soft green ‘Roman carpet’ sold by
Shoolbred does excellently with some sort of a ‘surround’ which is
easily cleaned, such as Jackson’s varnish stains, or plain cream
matting, or plain cork carpet, according to the state of the floor and
the particular tastes of the owner of the room, who should of course
have one of Giles’s removable parqueterie surrounds if she can afford
it. In any case she must never allow either a fitted carpet or a
patterned surround to fidget the eye, avoiding as a real sin against the
first principles of art, those terrible materials which imitate
parqueterie or tiles, or pretend to be anything save what they are, and
giving a wide berth to felt, an admirable material to look at, but a
fearful and abominable dust-trap. So indeed are fluffy materials of any
sort or kind if they cannot be cleaned without sweeping or by the
friendly aid of a damp duster, which just passed over them once a day,
keeps the stain or matting or cork carpet in order, and prevents the
accumulation in corners that must ensue if we have not a washable
material as a surround to whatever carpet we may select. If we have
matting all over the floor, it is well to recollect that salt and water
form an excellent mixture to use to cleanse it with, the salt in some
way preserving and toughening the fibres of the matting as well as
cleaning it in a most effectual style.
The principal things to recollect in this, and, indeed in any room are,
first, that it must be made draught-proof and be properly ventilated,
that we must so arrange that the door does not open right on the fire,
that while the furniture may be as simple as we like, everything must be
made to harmonise, being either bought for or adapted to the room itself
and the special occupations of the room’s mistress. Fortunately if our
purses are light, there is abundance of inexpensive furniture in these
days which I cannot, I feel, praise too highly. I remember the dreadful
struggles I had, to make my own first house pretty some six-and-twenty
years ago, when there was nothing to be had but heavy wood and solid
repps, and no one had whispered ‘Liberty,’ or mentioned serge, or bamboo
and wicker furniture, or, if they had, had murmured it so gently that
the murmur had not reached the ears of anyone at all. Now, scoff as one
may at wicker work and bamboo, I venture to say that by them lies the
way of salvation for the third room in an impecunious household. I have
bought the most charming and beautiful little cupboard tables at
Shoolbred’s, the most comfortable and excellent chairs at Smee &
Cobay’s, at Heelas, of Reading, and at Wallace’s, which have all the
delights of a real upholstered expensive arm-chair, if one has the
cushions made at home, at as many shillings as the other costs pounds.
While the most useful bookcase I ever came across is also matting and
bamboo, and this can have a species of cupboard shelf made by hanging a
curtain over the third receptacle for books, which said curtain is like
charity: it covers a multitude of sins in the shape of rolls of wall
paper, odds and ends of patterns, and old books which have seen better
days, and yet are not good enough to re-bind, and yet are too good to
throw away. Indeed, no book should ever be treated in such an
ignominious fashion. At the worst it can be sent to a hospital, or be
kept in our own special hospital box, which should be in every house,
for how can we tell when infectious disease may not find us out? In that
case we shall be thankful to be possessed of something to read which we
can afterwards burn without any _arrière pensée_ in the matter at all.
One thing should be in every morning-room, or third room, or library,
call this little chamber by what name we will; and that is an invaluable
small closing-table I have discovered in Kensington High Street. It
costs about 4s. 11d., simply stained dark brown, can be folded up and
put against a wall, or laid under a sofa when not in use, and is
altogether most unobtrusive and excellent, for it can be set up in one
second, and is admirable for a thousand purposes. I think it is large
enough to ‘cut out’ upon, although I am not an authority on the subject
of work. I know it is extremely handy for tea, and that one can make
scrapbooks upon it, and write upon it too, while as it can be folded and
put on one side at any moment, it does not get over-crowded with books
and ornaments, and is therefore always available. The ordinary small
occasional table never can be that, for it is usually clad in a nice
square table-cover and has flowers or a plant in the centre, and has
moreover, every available corner filled with books and ‘twos and
threes,’ while the modest and retiring folding-table only comes out for
use, and is never ornamental, and will not be used otherwise than for
the purpose for which it is made. Of course the walnut Sutherland table
is much nicer in every way, but is not to be had under 30s., is often of
most inferior wood liable to scratches and spots, and is also all too
often opened out clad in its tablecloth and ornamented to death. But we
have no qualms about the little cheap folding-table. If it is scratched
and spotted it can be scrubbed clean and given a new coat of Jackson’s
varnish stain and be in a moment as good as new if not better. Just one
word _en parenthése_, as it were, about stains. Do not let anything
anyone can say induce you to attempt the beautiful green staining we all
so much admire at home, for if you do, it can be nothing but a most
ghastly failure. True, the particular piece of furniture will be green,
but such a green! for the proper effect can only be obtained in the same
way really good French polish is procured, and that, as everyone knows,
can never be got save by a professional hand who knows the work, and has
never yet been known to divulge the secret of success. No; the green
stain is not for the amateur, be sure of that, while the ‘oak,’ and
‘dark oak,’ and ‘walnut’ varnish stains are exactly all that they ought
to be.
In this room a screen by the door is often a most blessed possession,
and as screens can be bought so cheaply nowadays everyone can avail
herself of the comfort procured by a judicious use of them. Liberty
first, and Shoolbred next, should be searched for an inexpensive screen,
for sometimes Liberty has none, and then Shoolbred may come to the
rescue, or our experience of both shops may be reversed; it all depends
on which place has had the last consignment from Japan. I bought a
beautiful screen at Liberty’s one year, about a month before Christmas,
for 18s. 9d., but on applying for another in the following March, found
all were sold out, and I had to go farther afield, discovering the one I
wanted in a shop in High Street, Kensington, the name of which I have
forgotten. True both Liberty and Shoolbred had plenty of screens but
neither had an inexpensive one, with a back warranted to resist the
frequent and uncalled-for assaults of the British housemaid. By the
way, a screen should always be placed behind the door, which should in
most cases open from left to right into a room if the room is in the
least degree like the one illustrated. I am not fond of a door opening
into a hall, and of course the perfect door should not open, but slide
into the wall, but perfection is a word never heard, and certainly not
understood at all in the usual suburb.
If the room be blue, the _portière_ should be of printed velveteen in
shades of yellow. With a floral paper it may be pink or green, but in
any case a plain material should not be employed as a _portière_. One
should always have a figured stuff there, and if one can afford it one
cannot improve on the aforesaid velveteen. _Portières_ should be made up
by a really competent hand and should be lined, and edged with either
‘grip-cord’ or fan-edging, as ball fringe is apt to come to grief in
this situation, the _portière_ being often caught in the door, or as
often grasped either by the parlour-maid as she announces a visitor or
by any small child who may have to open or close the door. I may seem to
speak unduly on the subject both of _portières_ and screens but unless
they are employed freely, I can assure my readers they will never
circumvent the ordinary suburban residence, but that if both are used,
any house, even the most jerry-built one which ever disgraced a ‘Park,’
or blotted the erst-while fair appearance of a ‘Grove,’ can be made
habitable. Without these aids to health, to say nothing of decoration,
such a house would be an impossible home for anyone not born and bred in
the Arctic regions; while outside blinds, if they can only be just
nailed up _pro tem._, and be mere grass mats bought for a few shillings
at Treloar’s, can circumvent extreme heat, which often is as bad to bear
in these terrible houses as the excessive cold and draughts which
characterise them. I know that as a rule three years sets the suburban
tenant on the prowl, and, as I said before, the mere idea that such can
be the case prevents many a woman from making her house either pretty to
look at or even weather-tight. But three years’ experience of untoward
weather in a jerry-built structure can undermine the health of any
woman, whereas she probably would not move and would certainly keep much
better in health if not entirely well, did she do her utmost to get
over the drawbacks at once. At the same time the hall must be warmed by
using the small, portable stove sold by Wolff & Sons, 119 New Bond
Street, if it is out of the question to obtain warmth from a real
fire-place, and very great care must be given to ventilation by
wide-open windows whenever it is possible, and it is always possible
during some part of the day: and by ventilators, as suggested before,
which should always be open at night, especially when lamps are lighted
and fires kept up. For an unventilated room means a sleepy head, and
dulness and stupidity instead of the liveliness which should
characterise a gathering of the family when the work of the day is
safely over and done.