The living-room! Shut your eyes a minute and think what that means: A
room to _live_ in, suited to all human needs; to be sick or sorry or
glad in, as the day's happenings may be; where one may come back from
far-reaching ways, for "East or West, Hame's best."
Listen a minute while I tell you how I see such a room: Big and restful,
making for comfort first and always; a little shabby here and there,
perhaps, but all the more satisfactory for that--like an old shoe that
goes on easily. Lots of light by night, and not too much drapery to shut
out the sunlight by day. Big, welcoming chairs, rather sprawly, and long
sofas. A big fire blazing on the open hearth. Perhaps, if we are very
lucky we may have some old logs from long since foundered ships, that
will flame blue and rose and green. He must indeed be of a poor spirit
who cannot call all sorts of visions from such a flame!
[Illustration: THE LIVING-ROOM IN THE C.W. HARKNESS HOUSE AT MORRISTOWN,
NEW JERSEY]
There should be a certain amount of order, because you cannot really
rest in a disorderly place, but there should be none of the formality of
the drawing-room. Formality should be used as a sort of foundation on
which the pleasant workaday business of the living-room is planned.
The living-room should always have a flavor of the main hobby of the
family, whether it be books, or music, or sport, or what not. If you
live in the real country there should be nothing in the room too good
for all moods and all weather--no need to think of muddy boots or wet
riding-clothes or the dogs that have run through the dripping fields.
I wonder if half the fathers and mothers in creation know just what it
means later on to the boys and girls going out from their roof-tree to
have the memory of such a living-room?
A living-room may be a simple place used for all the purposes of living,
or it may be merely an official clearing-house for family moods, one of
a dozen other living apartments. The living-room in the modern bungalow,
for instance, is often dining-room, library, hall, music-room, filling
all the needs of the family, while in a large country or city house
there may be the central family room, and ever so many little rooms that
grow out of the overflow needs--the writing-room, the tea room that is
also sun and breakfast room, the music-room and the library. In more
elaborate houses there are also the great hall, the formal drawing-room
and music-room, and the intimate boudoir. To all these should be given a
goodly measure of comfort.
Whether it be one or a dozen rooms, the spirit of it must be the
same--it must offer comfort, order, and beauty to be worth living in.
Just as when a large family is to be considered I believe in one big
meeting-room and a number of smaller rooms for special purposes, so I
believe that when a family is very small there should be one great
living-room and no other day room. Two young people who purpose to live
in a small cottage or a bungalow will be wise to have this one big room
that will serve for dining-room, living-room, and all. The same house
divided into a number of tiny rooms would suffocate them: there would be
no breathing-space. In furnishing such a room it is well to beware of
_sets_ of things: of six dining-room chairs, of the conventional
dining-table, serving-table, and china closet. I advocate the use of a
long table--four by seven feet is not too long--and a number of good
chairs that are alike in style, but not _exactly_ alike.
The chairs should not be the conventional dining-chairs. The idea that
the only dining-room chair possible is a perfectly straight up and down
stiff-backed chair is absurd. In a large house where there is a family
dining-room the chairs should be alike, but in an informal living-room
the chairs may be perfectly comfortable and useful between meals and
serve the purposes of dining-room chairs when necessary. For instance,
with a long oak table built on the lines of the old English refectory
tables you might have a long bench of oak and cane; a large high back
chair with arms of the Stuart order, that is, with graceful, turned
legs, carved frame work, and cane insets; two Cromwellian chairs covered
in some good stuff; and two or three straight oak-and-cane chairs of a
simple type. These chairs may be used for various purposes between
meals, and will not give the room the stiff and formal air that
straight-backed chairs invariably produce. One could imagine this table
drawn up to a window-seat, with bench and chairs beside it, and a dozen
cheerful people around it. There will be little chance of stiffness at
such a dining-table.
It should be remembered that when a part of the living-room is used for
meals, the things that suggest dining should be kept out of sight
between meals. All the china and so forth should be kept in the pantry
or in kitchen cupboards. The table may be left bare between meals.
In a room of this kind the furniture should be kept close to the walls,
leaving all the space possible for moving around in the center of the
room. The book shelves should be flat against the wall; there should be
a desk, not too clumsy in build near the book shelves or at right angles
to some window; there should be a sofa of some kind near the fireplace
with a small table at the head of it, which may be used for tea or books
or what not. If there is a piano, it should be very carefully placed so
that it will not dominate the room, and so that the people who will
listen to the music may gather in the opposite corner of the room. Of
course, a living-room of this kind is the jolliest place in the world
when things go smoothly, but there are times when a little room is a
very necessary place to retreat. This little room may be the study,
library, or a tea room, but it is worth while sacrificing your smallest
bedroom in order to have one small place of retreat.
If you can have a number of living-rooms, you can follow more definite
schemes of decoration. If you have a little enclosed piazza you can make
a breakfast room or a trellis room of it, or by bringing in many shelves
and filling them with flowers you can make the place a delightful little
flower box of a room for tea and talk.
Of course, if you live in the real country you will be able to use your
garden and your verandas as additional living-rooms. With a big
living-porch, the one indoor living-room may become a quiet library, for
instance. But if you haven't a garden or a sun-room, you should do all
in your power to bring the sunshine and gaiety into the living-room, and
take your books and quiet elsewhere. A library eight by ten feet, with
shelves all the way around and up and down, and two comfortable chairs,
and one or two windows, will be a most satisfactory library. If the room
is to be used for reading smallness doesn't matter, you see.
We Americans love books--popular books!--and we have had sense enough to
bring them into our living-rooms, and enjoy them. But when you begin
calling a room a library it should mean something more than a small
mahogany bookcase with a hundred volumes hidden behind glass doors. I
think there is nothing more amusing than the unused library of the
_nouveau riche_, the pretentious room with its monumental bookcases and
its slick area of glass doors and its thousands of unread volumes, caged
eternally in their indecent newness.
Some day when you have nothing better to do visit the _de luxe_ book
shops of some department store, and then visit a dusky old second hand
shop, and you will see what books can do! In the _de luxe_ shop they are
leathern covered things, gaudy and snobbish in their newness. In the old
book shop they are books that have lived, books that invite you to
browse. You'd rather have them with all their germs and dust than the
soulless tomes of uncut pages. You can judge people pretty well by their
books, and the wear and tear of them.
Open shelves are good enough for any house in these days of vacuum
cleaners. In the Bayard Thayer house I had the pleasure of furnishing a
wonderful library of superb paneled walls of mahogany of a velvety
softness, not the bright red wood of commerce. The open bookshelves were
architecturally planned, they filled shallow recesses in the wall, and
when the books were placed upon them they formed a glowing tapestry of
bindings, flush with the main wall.
I think the nicest living-room I know is the reading room of the Colony
Club. I never enjoyed making a room more, and when the Club was first
opened I was delighted to hear one woman remark to another: "Doesn't it
make you feel that it has been loved and lived in for years?"
The room is large and almost square. The walls are paneled in cream and
white, with the classic mantel and mirror treatment of the Adam period.
The large carpet rug is of one tone, a soft green blue. The bookcases
which run around the walls are of mahogany, as are the small, occasional
tables, and the large table in the center of the room. In this room I
have successfully exploded the old theory that all furniture in a well
planned room must be of the same kind! In this room there are several
Marlborough chairs, a davenport and a semi-circular fireside seat
upholstered in a soft green leather, several chairs covered in a chintz
of bird and blossom design, and other chairs covered with old English
needle-work. The effect is not discord, but harmony. Perhaps it is not
wise to advise the use of many colors and fabrics unless one has had
experience in the combining of many tones and hues, but if you are
careful to keep your walls and floors in subdued tones, you may have
great license in the selecting of hangings and chair coverings and
ornament.
I gave great attention to the details of this room. Under the simple
mantel shelf there is inset a small panel of blue and white Wedgwood. On
the mantel there are two jars of Chinese porcelain, and between them a
bronze jardiniere of the Adam period; four figures holding a shallow,
oblong tray, which is filled with flowers. The lamp on the center-table
is made of a hawthorn jar, with a flaring shade. There are many low
tables scattered through the room and beside every chair is a
reading-lamp easily adjusted to any angle. The fireplace fittings are
simple old brasses of the Colonial period. There is only one picture in
this room, and that is the portrait of a long gone lady, framed in a
carved gilt frame, and hung against the huge wall-mirror which is
opposite the fireplace end of the room.
I believe, given plenty of light and air, that comfortable chairs and
good tables go further toward making a living-room comfortable than
anything else. In the Harkness living-room you will see this theory
proven. There are chairs and tables of all sizes, from the great sofas
to the little footstools, from the huge Italian tables to the little
table especially made to hold a few flower pots. Wherever there is a
large table there is a long sofa or a few big chairs; wherever there is
a lone chair there is a small table to hold a reading-light, or flowers,
or what not. The great size of the room, the fine English ceiling of
modeled plaster, the generous fireplace with its paneled over-mantel,
the groups of windows, all these architectural details go far toward
making the room a success. The comfortable chairs and sofas and the ever
useful tables do the rest.
So many people ask me: How shall I furnish my living-room? What paper
shall I use on the walls? What woodwork and curtains--and rugs? One
woman asked me what books she should buy!
Your living-room should grow out of the needs of your daily life. There
could be no two living-rooms exactly alike in scheme if they were lived
in. You will have to decide on the wall colors and such things, it is
true, but the rest of the room should grow of itself. You will not make
the mistake of using a dark paper of heavy figures if you are going to
use many pictures and books, for instance. You will not use a gay
bed-roomy paper covered with flowers and birds. You will know without
being told that your wall colors must be neutral: that your woodwork
must be stained and waxed, or painted some soft tone of your wall color.
Then, let the rugs and curtains and things go until you decide you have
to have them. The room will gradually find itself, though it may take
years and heartache and a certain self-confession of inadequacy. It will
express your life, if you use it, so be careful of the life you live in
it!