In these servantless days, the bungalow type of house grows more and
more popular. It is compact, convenient; it only asks for a simple type
of furniture. A mixture of good willow, painted or left in its natural
color, in the body, and with the braided edge painted or stained; some
old mahogany or walnut pieces, if you are fortunate enough to own them,
mix in well, or good simple reproductions. By walnut furniture I do
not mean the hideous black walnut “Eastlake” types. These, with their
scrolls and marble tops and glooms, are, I hope, forever relegated to
oblivion.
I shudder now in remembrance of a set of black walnut furniture in my
grandmother’s bedroom, particularly an enormous bureau, with its marble
top, huge great mirror supported by carved columns that wiggled upward,
and topped over all by massive carved grapes. How I gazed in awe while
a terrible stillness always filled me as I planted my small person in
front of it!
And oh! the terrible “best rooms” of the past! I remember a friend
telling me that in her father’s house the “best room” door was never
left open. That closed door, at the foot of the stairs--how it filled
her with absolute horror! And she had a trick of throwing herself
around the newel post with a tremendous swing--with enough “way” to
land her up two or three steps of the stairs if she was going up, or
’way round, well past that awful door, if she was coming down stairs.
Imagine the effect on that little mind. And the shrinking terror with
which she grew up. The awful something behind those doors! What was it?
What an opportunity for an inhibition! The “best room,” thank Fate, has
forever left us, and in its place we are putting the living room where
the family draws magnetically together. Wonderful if it has an open
fire, and most bungalows now have. The open fire is the soul of a room.
We gravitate toward it instinctively. We group our furniture round it.
We draw up chairs, stools, anything to get within its cheerful glow.
Arrange your furniture with some meaning, in groups if it is a large
room. There is the group around the fire; the group around the tea
table; the group around the reading table, with its glow of light,
centred to draw the family together in peace and concord.
Above all things avoid “small junk.” The sins that are committed in
the name of “bric-à-brac” can never be atoned for. There is no Hades
big enough! And the amount of money that is spent is appalling. If
you can’t have a few fine bits, preferably antique, there are many
modern Chinese porcelains that are lively and full of color. Don’t be
afraid of empty spaces--books, flowers, a work box, all have meaning
and purpose. There never was a drawing room too fine for a lady’s work
box; and what a sense of cozy human sympathy it always has--the chair
beside a low table with a work box, a vase of flowers, a book. That
brings us to another point. Have low tables--as many as your room
will hold--without crowding, of course, and instead of cheap, utterly
meaningless junk--cheap though it may have cost much actual money--have
flowers, or green branches of laurel leaves or a small growing plant;
and a book or magazine on a low table placed beside the chair where
your family or guest may take comfort and pleasure.
To go back to our starting point--the bungalow. Arrange any rooms on
the first floor so that they do not clash, not necessarily using the
same tones but as far as possible letting the colors in one room lead
into another or carry on a suggestion from one to another. In other
words, keep your vista so that the effect, while not being monotonous,
avoids the chopped-up restless result we have when we break up our
space by too many colors. Have your house restful and keep away
from the temptation to put too many things about. Rather do as the
Japanese--keep a lot in the closet and change them around. Have a large
table with a large lamp whose shade permits a wide radius of light,
so that several persons may sit within its circle. Put books and
magazines and papers on the table or in little racks, for your bungalow
living room is an informal room. Parchment lamp-shades are lovely in a
bungalow and can be made plain with bands of color or with a design,
depending on the material used for cushions, etc. Have one or two large
divans with loose cushions, depending on the size of your living room.
Over-stuffed pieces look much smarter and most intimate if upholstered
in chintzes. If your chintz is delicate in color and design, have
fitted slip covers well made with corded seams and pleated valances.
Very tailored these must be--not at all the loose baggy things we put
on as dust-covers in summer. The finest drawing rooms in England have
these fitted slip covers, and the delicate chintzes can thus be easily
cleansed.
In the niches or corners between your rooms put large Spanish or
Moorish jars, which come in a very inexpensive pottery vivid in color;
and one can always get a bough of green to put in them.
Of course there are many types of bungalows, from the very simple
ones with pine sheathed varnished walls to the permanent type with
plastered and tinted walls, which permit of a more elaborate and
permanent kind of furnishings.
For the primitive bungalow, grass rugs or those made of fiber, of which
there are many charming and very smart ones to choose from, are very
effective, if your furnishings are very simple and you haven’t much
color about. But in the permanent type of house almost any kind of
carpet rug, Oriental or Chinese rug can be used.
Have only lamps in your living room, lots of them; no side lights,
though these in simple appropriate design are most attractive and
necessary in the dining room, as you have no overhead light and no
other light except your table candles. Painted furniture is most
charming in a bungalow dining room, or you can use painted chairs and
a mahogany table. The color in your rooms should be determined by the
exposure of your house.
Personally I like paper in country bedrooms. There are so many very
pretty papers that are reproductions of fine old chintz designs, that
give a deliciously crisp fresh look, and it is so easy to take one of
the colors in the paper as your color scheme for the room. Paint up a
lot of old furniture if you have it; body color it some tone in your
paper and put lines of another color; or if you can paint, take some
motive in your paper or chintz and reproduce it on your furniture.
Don’t be in a hurry to do it all at once. It will grow--one thing will
suggest another and it becomes a perfectly fascinating sort of game.
If your wall has a flowered paper, it is well to use some plain
material for curtains--or something with very inconspicuous pattern.
If your windows are very small and your house is where no one can see
in, have your sash window curtains pushed well back to give you all the
beauty of your view. Let in all the sunshine and air you possibly can.
For country bedrooms nothing is prettier than dotted swiss--or organdie
or ordinary book muslin, made with little ruffles on the inside. They
dress up a room at once; and remember this--that if your windows are
properly handled, your curtains well chosen and well made, your room
is half--more than half--done, for immediately on entering a room our
gaze goes toward the window. Really enchanting curtains can be made
of ginghams and voiles and many materials that one sees in the day’s
shopping. For bedrooms a valance of chintz over the muslin window
curtain will give up color--if we don’t want chintz curtains at the
sides of our window.
Be very careful that you get the right shade of your color. There are
blues that are warm and blues that are very cold. Pink can be one of
the hardest tones I know, if it is in a room with the wrong exposure.
Some yellows are sunny, others very dull. You have to try them in your
rooms--each with its own angle of exposure and light and reflection.
In your verandah furnishings you have room for no end of color. You
can let yourself go to your heart’s content--not freakish color but
good strong ringing tones. The out of doors absorbs them in such a
way that they are never garish or hard. Avoid heavy stuffy coverings
and portieres, avoid “schemes” of decoration. Plan for comfort, for a
suitable background that expresses the life of the family living within
the walls of your house. Keep your floors low in tone--a well finished
floor has much to do as a background with all the furniture we place
upon it. See that it is well stained and polished and your wall tones
soft and neutral. Be sincere--don’t do things for effect, but let your
home express your life and in return it will give you joy and comfort.