What a sense of intimacy, of security, encompasses one when ushered into
a living room in which the door opens and _closes_! Who that has read
Henry James's remarkable article on the vistas dear to the American
hostess, our portiere-hung spaces, guiltless of doors and open to every
draft, can fail to feel how much better our conversation might be were
we not forever conscious that between our guests and the greedy ears of
our servants there is nothing but a curtain! All that curtains ever were
used for in the Eighteenth Century was as a means of shutting out drafts
in large rooms inadequately heated by wood fires.
How often do we see masses of draperies looped back and arranged with
elaborate dust-catching tassels and fringes that mean nothing. These
curtains do not even draw! I am sure that a good, well-designed door
with a simple box-lock and hinges would be much less costly than velvet
hangings. A door is not an ugly object, to be concealed for very shame,
but a fine architectural detail of great value. Consider the French and
Italian doors with their architraves. How fine they are, how imposing,
how honest, and how well they compose!
Of course, if your house has been built with open archways, you will
need heavy curtains for them, but there are curtains _and_ curtains. If
you need portieres at all, you need them to cut off one room from
another, and so they should hang in straight folds. They should be just
what they pretend to be--honest curtains with a duty to fulfil. For the
simple house they may be made of velvet or velveteen in some neutral
tone that is in harmony with the rugs and furnishings of the rooms that
are to be divided. They should be double, usually, and a faded gilt gimp
may be used as an outline or as a binding. There are also excellent
fabrics reproducing old brocades and even old tapestries, but it is well
to be careful about using these fabrics. There are machine-made
"tapestries" of foliage designs in soft greens and tans and browns on a
dark blue ground that are very pleasing. Many of these stuffs copy in
color and design the verdure tapestries, and some of them have fine
blues and greens suggestive of Gobelin. These stuffs are very wide and
comparatively inexpensive. I thoroughly advise a stuff of this kind, but
I heartily condemn the imitations of the old tapestries that are covered
with large figures and intricate designs. These old tapestries are as
distinguished for their colors, their textures, and their very crudities
as for their supreme beauty of coloring. It would be foolish to imitate
them.
As for windows and their curtains--I could write a book about them! A
window is such a gay, animate thing. By day it should be full of
sunshine, and if it frames a view worth seeing, the view should be a
part of it. By night the window should be hidden by soft curtains that
have been drawn to the side during the sunshiny hours.
In most houses there is somewhere a group of windows that calls for an
especial kind of curtain. If these windows look out over a pleasant
garden, or upon a vista of fields and trees, or even upon a striking
sky-line of housetops, you will be wise to use a thin, sheer glass
curtain through which you can look out, but which protects you from the
gaze of passers-by. If your group of windows is so placed that there is
no danger of people passing and looking in, then a short sash curtain of
swiss muslin is all that you require, with inside curtains of some
heavier fabric--chintz or linen or silk--that can be drawn at night.
If you are building a new house I strongly advise you to have at least
one room with a group of deep windows, made up of small panes of leaded
glass, and a broad window-seat built beneath them. There is something so
pleasant and mellow in leaded glass, particularly when the glass itself
has an uneven, colorful quality. When windows are treated thus
architecturally they need no glass curtains. They need only side
curtains of some deep-toned fabric.
[Illustration: By permission of the Butterick Publishing Co.
BLACK CHINTZ USED IN A DRESSING-ROOM]
As for your single windows, when you are planning them you will be
wise to have the sashes so placed that a broad sill will be possible.
There is nothing pleasanter than a broad window sill at a convenient
height from the floor. The tendency of American builders nowadays is to
use two large glass sashes instead of the small or medium-sized panes of
older times.
This is very bad from the standpoint of the architect, because these
huge squares of glass suggest holes in the wall, whereas the square or
oblong panes with their straight frames and bars advertise their
suitability. The housewife's objection to small panes is that they are
harder to clean than the large ones, but this objection is not worthy of
consideration. If we really wish to make our houses look as if they were
built for permanency we should consider everything that makes for beauty
and harmony and hominess. There is nothing more interesting than a
cottage window sash of small square panes of glass unless it be the
diamond-paned casement window of an old English house. Such windows are
obviously windows. The huge sheets of plate glass that people are so
proud of are all very well for shops, but they are seldom right in small
houses.
I remember seeing one plate glass window that was well worth while. It
was in the mountain studio of an artist and it was fully eight by ten
feet--one unbroken sheet of glass which framed a marvelous vista of
mountain and valley. It goes without saying that such a window requires
no curtain other than one that is to be drawn at night.
The ideal treatment for the ordinary single window is a soft curtain of
some thin white stuff hung flat and full against the glass. This curtain
should have an inch and a half hem at the bottom and a narrow hem at the
sides. It should be strung on a small brass rod, and should be placed as
close to the glass as possible, leaving just enough space for the window
shade beneath it. The curtain should hang in straight folds to the
window sill, escaping it by half an inch or so.
I hope it is not necessary for me to go into the matter of lace curtains
here. I feel sure that no woman of really good taste could prefer a
cheap curtain of imitation lace to a simple one of white swiss-muslin. I
have never seen a house room that was too fine for a swiss-muslin
curtain, though of course there are many rooms that would welcome no
curtains whatever wherein the windows are their own excuse for being.
Lace curtains, even if they may have cost a king's ransom, are in
questionable taste, to put it mildly. Use all the lace you wish on your
bed linen and table linen, but do not hang it up at your windows for
passers-by to criticize.
[Illustration: PRINTED LINEN CURTAINS OVER ROSE-COLORED SILK]
Many women do not feel the need of inside curtains. Indeed, they are not
necessary in all houses. They are very attractive when they are well
hung, and they give the window a distinction and a decorative charm that
is very valuable. I am using many photographs that show the use of
inside curtains. You will observe that all of these windows have glass
curtains of plain white muslin, no matter what the inside curtain may
be.
Chintz curtains are often hung with a valance about ten or twelve inches
deep across the top of the window. These valances should be strung on a
separate rod, so that the inside curtains may be pulled together if need
be. The ruffled valance is more suitable for summer cottages and
bedrooms than for more formal rooms. A fitted valance of chintz or
brocade is quite dignified enough for a drawing-room or any other.
In my bedroom I have used a printed linen with a flat valance. This
printed linen is in soft tones of rose and green on a cream ground. The
side curtains have a narrow fluted binding of rose-colored silk. Under
these curtains are still other curtains of rose-colored shot silk, and
beneath those are white muslin glass curtains. With such a window
treatment the shot silk curtains are the ones that are drawn together at
night, making a very soft, comforting sort of color arrangement. You
will observe in this photograph that the panels between doors and
windows are filled with mirrors that run the full length from the
molding to the baseboard. This is a very beautiful setting for the
windows, of course.
It is well to remember that glass curtains should not be looped back.
Inside curtains may be looped when there is no illogical break in the
line. It is absurd to hang up curtains against the glass and then draw
them away, for glass curtains are supposed to be a protection from the
gaze of the passers-by. If you haven't passers-by you can pull your
curtains to the side so that you may enjoy the out-of-doors. Do not lose
sight of the fact that your windows are supposed to give you sunshine
and air; if you drape them so that you get neither sunshine nor air you
might as well block them up and do away with them entirely.
To me the most amazing evidence of the advance of good taste is the
revival of chintzes, printed linens, cottons and so forth, of the
Eighteenth Century. Ten years ago it was almost impossible to find a
well-designed cretonne; the beautiful chintzes as we know them were
unknown. Now there are literally thousands of these excellent fabrics of
old and new designs in the shops. The gay designs of the printed cottons
that came to us from East India, a hundred years ago, and the fantastic
chintzes known as Chinese Chippendale, that were in vogue when the Dutch
East India Company supplied the world with its china and fabrics; the
dainty French _toiles de Jouy_ that are reminiscent of Marie Antoinette
and her bewitching apartments, and the printed linens of old England and
later ones of the England of William Morris, all these are at our
service. There are charming cottons to be had at as little as twenty
cents a yard, printed from old patterns. There are linens hand-printed
from old blocks that rival cut velvet in their lustrous color effect and
cost almost as much. There are amazing fabrics that seem to have come
from the land of the Arabian nights--they really come from Austria and
are dubbed "Futurist" and "Cubist" and such. Some of them are inspiring,
some of them are horrifying, but all of them are interesting. Old-time
chintzes were usually very narrow, and light in ground, but the modern
chintz is forty or fifty inches wide, with a ground of neutral tone that
gives it distinction, and defies dust.
When I began my work as a decorator of houses, my friends, astonished
and just a little amused at my persistent use of chintz, called me the
"Chintz decorator." The title pleased me, even though it was bestowed in
fun, for my theory has always been that chintz, when properly used, is
the most decorative and satisfactory of all fabrics. At first people
objected to my bringing chintz into their houses because they had an
idea it was poor and mean, and rather a doubtful expedient. On the
contrary, I feel that it is infinitely, better to use good chintzes than
inferior silks and damasks, just as simple engravings and prints are
preferable to doubtful paintings. The effect is the thing!
One of the chief objections to the charming fabric was that people felt
it would become soiled easily, and would often have to be renewed, but
in our vacuum-cleaned houses we no longer feel that it is necessary to
have furniture and hangings that will "conceal dirt." We refuse to
_have_ dirt! Of course, chintzes in rooms that will have hard wear
should be carefully selected. They should be printed on linen, or some
hard twilled fabric, and the ground color should be darker than when
they are to be used in bedrooms. Many of the newer chintzes have dark
grounds of blue, mauve, maroon or gray, and a still more recent chintz
has a black ground with fantastic designs of the most delightful
colorings. The black chintzes are reproductions of fabrics that were in
vogue in 1830. They are very good in rooms that must be used a great
deal, and they are very decorative. Some of them suggest old cut
velvets--they are so soft and lustrous.
My greatest difficulty in introducing chintzes here was to convert women
who loved their plush and satin draperies to a simpler fabric. They were
unwilling to give up the glories they knew for the charms they knew not.
I convinced them by showing them results! My first large commission was
the Colony Club, and I used chintzes throughout the Club: Chintzes of
cool grapes and leaves in the roof garden, hand-blocked linens of many
soft colors in the reading-room, rose-sprigged and English posy designs
in the bedrooms, and so on throughout the building.
Now I am using more chintz than anything else. It is as much at home in
the New York drawing-room as in the country cottage. I can think of
nothing more charming for a room in a country house than a sitting-room
furnished with gray painted furniture and a lovely chintz.
[Illustration: STRAIGHT HANGINGS OF ROSE AND YELLOW SHOT SILK]
Not long ago I was asked to furnish a small sea-shore cottage. The
whole thing had to be done in a month, and the only plan I had to work
on was a batch of chintz samples that had been selected for the house. I
extracted the colorings of walls, woodwork, furniture, etc., from these
chintzes. Instead of buying new furniture I dragged down a lot of old
things that had been relegated to the attic and painted them with a dull
ground color and small designs adapted from the chintzes. The lighting
fixtures, wall brackets, candle sticks, etc.--were of carved wood,
painted in polychrome to match the general scheme. One chintz in
particular I would like to have every woman see and enjoy. It had a
ground of old blue, patterned regularly with little Persian "pears," the
old rug design, you know. The effect of this simple chintz with white
painted walls and furniture and woodwork and crisp white muslin glass
curtains was delicious.
The most satisfactory of all chintzes is the _Toile de Jouy_. The
designs are interesting and well drawn, and very much more decorative
than the designs one finds in ordinary silks and other materials. The
chintzes must be appropriate to the uses of the room, well designed, in
scale with the height of the ceilings, and so forth. It is well to
remember that self-color rugs are most effective in chintz rooms. Wilton
rugs woven in carpet sizes are to be had now at all first class
furniture stores.
Painted furniture is very popular nowadays and is especially delightful
when used in chintz rooms. The furniture we see now is really a revival
and reproduction of the old models made by Angelica Kaufman,
Heppelwhite, and other furniture-makers of their period. The old
furniture is rarely seen outside of museums nowadays, but it has been an
inspiration to modern decorators who are seeking ideas for simple and
charming furniture.
A very attractive room can be made by taking unfinished pieces of
furniture--that is, furniture that has not been stained or painted--and
painting them a soft field color, and then adding decorations of
bouquets or garlands, or birds, or baskets, reproducing parts of the
design of the chintz used in the room. Of course, many of these patterns
could be copied by a good draftsman only, but others are simple enough
for anyone to attempt. For instance, I decorated a room in soft cream,
gray, yellow and cornflower blue. The chintz had a cornflower design
that repeated all these colors. I painted the furniture a very soft
gray, and then painted little garlands of cornflowers in soft blues and
gray-greens on each piece of furniture. The walls were painted a soft
cream color. The carpet rug of tan was woven in one piece with a blue
stripe in the border.
The color illustrations of this book will give you a very good idea of
how I use chintzes and painted furniture. One of the illustrations shows
the use of a black chintz in the dressing-room of a city house. The
chintz is covered with parrots which make gorgeous splashes of color on
the black ground. The color of the foliage and leaves is greenish-blue,
which shades into a dozen blues and greens. This greenish-blue tone has
been used in the small things of the room. The chintz curtains are lined
with silk of this tone, and the valance at the top of the group of
windows is finished with a narrow silk fringe of this greenish-blue. The
small candle shades, the shirred shade of the drop-light, and the
cushion of the black lacquer chair are also of this blue.
The walls of the room are a deep cream in tone, and there are a number
of old French prints from some Eighteenth Century fashion journals hung
on the cream ground. The dressing-table is placed against the windows,
over the radiator, so that there is light and to spare for dressing.
Half curtains of white muslin are shirred on the sashes back of the
dressing-table. The quaint triplicate mirror is of black lacquer
decorated with Chinese figures in gold, and the little, three-cornered
cabinet in the corner is also of black and gold. The chintz is used as a
covering for the dressing-seat.
Another illustration shows the writing-corner of the bedroom which leads
into this dressing-room. The walls and the rose-red carpet are the same
in both rooms, as you see. This bedroom depends absolutely on the rose
and blue chintz for its decoration. There is a quaint bed painted a pale
gray, with rose-red taffeta coverlet. The bed curtains are of the chintz
lined with the rose-red silk. There are several white-enamel chairs
upholstered with the chintz, and there is a comfortable French couch
with a kidney table of mahogany beside it. The corner of the room shown
in the illustration is the most convenient writing-place. The desk is
placed at right angles to the wall between the two windows. The small
furnishings of the writing-desk repeat the queer blues and the rose-red
of the chintz. A very comfortable stool with a cushion of old velvet is
an added convenience.
The chintz curtains at the windows hang in straight, full folds. A flat
valance, cut the length of the design of the chintz, furnishes the top
of the two windows. Some windows do not need these valances, but these
windows are very high and need the connecting line of color. The long
curtains are lined with the rose-red silk, which also shows in a narrow
piping around the edges.
[Illustration: MUSLIN GLASS CURTAINS IN THE WASHINGTON IRVING HOUSE]
The other two color illustrations are of the most popular room I have
done, a bedroom and sitting room combined. Everyone likes the color plan
of soft greens, mauve and lavender. There is a large day bed of painted
wood, with mattress, springs and cushions covered with a chintz of mauve
ground and gay birds. The rug is a self-toned rug of very soft green,
and the walls are tinted with the palest of greens. The woodwork is
white, and the furniture is painted a greenish-gray that is just a
little deeper than pearl. A darker green line of paint outlines all
the furniture, which is further decorated with prim little garlands
of flowers painted in dull rose, blue, yellow and green.
The mauve chintz is used for the curtains, and for the huge armchair and
one or two painted chairs. There is a little footstool covered with
brocaded violet velvet, with just a thread of green showing on the
background. The lighting fixtures are of carved wood, painted in soft
colors to match the garlands on the furniture, with shirred shades of
lavender silk. Two lamps made of quaint old green jars with lavender
decorations have shirred shades of the same silk. One of these lamps is
used on the writing-table and the other on the little chest of drawers.
This little chest of drawers, by the way, is about the simplest piece of
furniture I can think of, for any girl who can use her brushes at all.
An ordinary chest of drawers should be given several coats of
paint--pale yellow, green or blue, as may be preferred. Then a thin
stripe of a darker tone should be painted on it. This should be outlined
in pencil and then painted with a deeper tone of green color; for
instance, an orange or brown stripe should be used on pale yellow, and
dark green or blue on the pale green.
A detail of the wall paper or the chintz design may be outlined on the
panels of the drawers and on the top of the chest by means of a stencil,
and then painted with rather soft colors. The top of the chest should be
covered with a piece of plate glass which will have the advantage of
showing the design of the cover and of being easily cleaned.
Old-fashioned glass knobs add interest to this piece of furniture. A
mirror with a gilt frame, or an unframed painting similar to the one
shown in the illustration would be very nice above the chest of drawers.
[Illustration: HERE ARE MANY LIGHTING FIXTURES HARMONIOUSLY ASSEMBLED
IN A DRAWING-ROOM]