This is the age of the apartment. Not only in the great cities, but in
the smaller centers of civilization the apartment has come to stay.
Modern women demand simplified living, and the apartment reduces the
mechanical business of living to its lowest terms. A decade ago the
apartment was considered a sorry makeshift in America, though it has
been successful abroad for more years than you would believe. We
Americans have been accustomed to so much space about us that it seemed
a curtailment of family dignity to give up our gardens, our piazzas and
halls, our cellars and attics, our front and rear entrances. Now we are
wiser. We have just so much time, so much money and so much strength,
and it behooves us to make the best of it. Why should we give our time
and strength and enthusiasm to drudgery, when our housework were better
and more economically done by machinery and co-operation? Why should we
stultify our minds with doing the same things thousands of times over,
when we might help ourselves and our friends to happiness by intelligent
occupations and amusements? The apartment is the solution of the living
problems of the city, and it has been a direct influence on the houses
of the towns, so simplifying the small-town business of living as well.
Of course, many of us who live in apartments either have a little house
or a big one in the country for the summer months, or we plan for one
some day! So hard does habit die--we cannot entirely divorce our ideas
of Home from gardens and trees and green grass. But I honestly think
there is a reward for living in a slice of a house: women who have lived
long in the country sometimes take the beauty of it for granted, but the
woman who has been hedged in by city walls gets the fine joy of
out-of-doors when she _is_ out of doors, and a pot of geraniums means
more to her than a whole garden means to a woman who has been denied the
privilege of watching things grow.
The modern apartment is an amazing illustration of the rapid development
of an idea. The larger ones are quite as magnificent as any houses could
be. I have recently furnished a Chicago apartment that included large
and small salons, a huge conservatory, and a great group of superb rooms
that are worthy of a palace. There are apartment houses in New York that
offer suites of fifteen to twenty rooms, with from five to ten baths, at
yearly rentals that approximate wealth to the average man, but these
apartments are for the few, and there are hundreds of thousands of
apartments for the many that have the same essential conveniences.
One of the most notable achievements of the apartment house architects
is the duplex apartment, the little house within a house, with its
two-story high living room, its mezzanine gallery with service rooms
ranged below and sleeping rooms above, its fine height and spaciousness.
Most of the duplex apartments are still rather expensive, but some of
them are to be had at rents that are comparatively low--rents are always
comparative, you know.
Fortunately, although it is a far cry financially from the duplex
apartment to the tidy three-room flat of the model tenements, the
"modern improvements" are very much the same. The model tenement offers
compact domestic machinery, and cleanliness, and sanitary comforts at a
few dollars a week that are not to be had at any price in many of the
fine old houses of Europe. The peasant who has lived on the plane of the
animals with no thought of cleanliness, or indeed of anything but food
and drink and shelter, comes over here and enjoys improvements that our
stately ancestors of a few generations ago would have believed magical.
Enjoys them--they do say he puts his coal in the bath tub, but his
grandchildren will be different, perhaps!
But enough of apartments in general. This chapter is concerned with the
small apartment sought by you young people who are beginning
housekeeping. You want to find just the proper apartment, of course, and
then you want to decorate and furnish it. Let me beg of you to demand
only the actual essentials: a decent neighborhood, good light and air,
and at least one reasonably large room. Don't demand perfection, for
you won't find it. Make up your mind just what will make for your
happiness and comfort, and demand that. You can make any place livable
by furnishing it wisely. And, oh, let me beg of you, don't buy your
furniture until you have found and engaged your apartment! It is bad
enough to buy furniture for a house you haven't seen, but an apartment
is a place of limitations, and you can so easily mar the place by buying
things that will not fit in. An apartment is so dependent upon proper
fittings, skilfully placed, that you may ruin your chances of a real
home if you go ahead blindly.
Before you sign your lease, be sure that the neighborhood is not too
noisy. Be sure that you will have plenty of light and air and heat. You
can interview the other tenants, and find out about many things you
haven't time or the experience to anticipate. Be sure that your landlord
is a reasonable human being who will consent to certain changes, if
necessary, who will be willing for you to build in certain things, who
will co-operate with you in improving his property, if you go about it
tactfully.
Be sure that the woodwork is plain and unpretentious, that the
lighting-fixtures are logically placed, and of simple construction. (Is
there anything more dreadful than those colored glass domes, with
fringes of beads, that landlords so proudly hang over the imaginary
dining-table?) Be sure that the plumbing is in good condition, and
beware the bedroom on an air shaft--better pay a little more rent and
save the doctor's bills. Beware of false mantels, and grotesque
grille-work, and imitation stained glass, and grained woodwork. You
couldn't be happy in a place that was false to begin with.
Having found just the combination of rooms that suggests a real home to
you, go slowly about your decorating.
It is almost imperative that the woodwork and walls should have the same
finish throughout the apartment, unless you wish to find yourself living
in a crazy-quilt of unfriendly colors. I have seen four room apartments
in which every room had a different wall paper and different woodwork.
The "parlor" was papered with poisonous-looking green paper, with
imitation mahogany woodwork; the dining-room had walls covered with red
burlap and near-oak woodwork; the bedroom was done in pink satin
finished paper and bird's-eye maple woodwork, and the kitchen was
bilious as to woodwork, with bleak gray walls. Could anything be more
mistaken?
You can make the most commonplace rooms livable if you will paint all
your woodwork cream, or gray, or sage green, and cover your walls with a
paper of very much the same tone. Real hard wood trim isn't used in
ordinary apartments, so why not do away with the badly-grained imitation
and paint it? You can look through thousands of samples of wall papers,
and you will finally have to admit that there is nothing better for
every day living than a deep cream, a misty gray, a tan or a buff paper.
You may have a certain license in the papering of your bedrooms, of
course, but the living-rooms--hall, dining-room, living-room,
drawing-room, and so forth--should be pulled together with walls of one
color. In no other way can you achieve an effect of spaciousness--and
spaciousness is the thing of all other things most desirable in the
crowded city. You must have a place where you can breathe and fling your
arms about!
When you have it really ready for furnishing, get the essentials first;
do with a bed and a chest of drawers and a table and a few chairs, and
add things gradually, as the rooms call for them.
Make the best of the opportunities offered for built-in furniture before
you buy another thing. If you have a built-in china closet in your
dining-room, you can plan a graceful built-in console-table to serve as
a buffet or serving-table, and you will require only a good table--not
too heavily built--and a few chairs for this room. There is rarely a
room that would not be improved by built-in shelves and inset mirrors.
Of course, I do not advise you to spend a lot of money on someone else's
property, but why not look the matter squarely in the face? This is to
be your home. You will find a number of things that annoy you--life in
any city furnishes annoyances. But if you have one or two reasonably
large rooms, plenty of light and air, and respectable surroundings, make
up your mind that you will not move every year. That you will make a
home of this place, and then go ahead and _treat_ it as a home! If a
certain recess in the wall suggests bookshelves, don't grudge the few
dollars necessary to have the bookshelves built in! You can probably
have them built so that they can be removed, on that far day when this
apartment is no longer your home, and if you have a dreadful wall paper
don't hide behind the silly plea that the landlord will not change it.
Go without a new gown, if necessary, and pay for the paper yourself.
Few apartments have fireplaces, and if you are fortunate enough to find
one with a real fireplace and a simple mantel shelf you will be far on
the way toward making a home of your group of rooms. Of course your
apartment is heated by steam, or hot air, or something, but an open fire
of coal or wood will be very pleasant on chilly days, and more important
still your home will have a point of departure--the Hearth.
If the mantel shelf is surmounted by one of those dreadful monstrosities
made up of gingerbread woodwork and distressing bits of mirrors,
convince your landlord that it will not be injured in the removing, and
store it during your residence here. Have the space above the mantel
papered like the rest of the walls, and hang one good picture, or a good
mirror, or some such thing above your mantel shelf, and you will have
offered up your homage to the Spirit of the Hearth.
When you do begin to buy furniture, buy compactly, buy carefully.
Remember that you will not require the furniture your mother had in a
sixteen-room house. You will have no hall or piazza furnishings to buy,
for instance, and therefore you many put a little more into your
living-room things. The living-room is the nucleus of the modern
apartment. Sometimes it is studio, living-room and dining-room in one.
Sometimes living-room, library and guest-room, by the grace of a
comfortable sleeping-couch and a certain amount of drawer or closet
space. At any rate, it will be more surely a living-room than a similar
room in a large house, and therefore everything in it should count for
something. Do not admit an unnecessary rug, or chair, or picture, lest
you lose the spaciousness, the dignity of the room. An over-stuffed
chair will fill a room more obviously than a grand piano--if the piano
is properly, and the chair improperly placed.
In one of the illustrations of this chapter you will observe a small
sitting-room in which there are dozens of things, and yet the effect is
quiet and uncrowded. The secretary against the plain wall serves as a
cabinet for the display of a small collection of fine old china, and the
drawers serve the chance guest--for while this is library and
sitting-room, it has a most comfortable couch bed, and may be used as a
guest-room as well.
[Illustration: A CORNER OF MY OWN BOUDOIR]
The bookshelves are built high on each side of the mantel and between
the windows, thus giving shelf room to a goodly collection of books,
with no appearance of heaviness. The writing-table is placed at right
angles to the windows, so that the light may fall on the writer's left
shoulder. There is a couch bed--over three feet wide, in this room, with
frame and mattress and pillows covered in a dark brocaded stuff, and a
fireside chair, a small chair at the head of the couch and a low stool
all covered with the same fabric. It really isn't a large room, and yet
it abundantly fills a dozen needs.
I think it unwise to try to work out a cut-and-dried color plan in a
small apartment. If your floors and walls are neutral in tone you can
introduce dozens of soft colors into your rooms.
Don't buy massive furniture for your apartment! Remember that a few good
chairs of willow will be less expensive and more decorative than the
heavy, stuffy chairs usually chosen by inexperienced people. Indeed, I
think one big arm chair, preferably of the wing variety, is the only big
chair you will require in the living-room. A fireside chair is like a
grandfather's clock; it gives so much dignity to a room that it is worth
a dozen inferior things. Suppose you have a wing chair covered with
dull-toned corduroy, or linen, or chintz; a large willow chair with a
basket pocket for magazines or your sewing things; a stool or so of
wood, with rush or cane seats; and a straight chair or so--perhaps a
painted Windsor chair, or a rush-bottomed mahogany chair, or a low-back
chair of brown oak--depending on the main furniture of the room, of
course. You won't need anything more, unless you have space for a
comfortable couch.
If you have mahogany things, you will require a little mahogany table at
the head of the couch to hold a reading-lamp--a sewing-table would be
excellent. A pie-crust or turn top table for tea, or possibly a "nest"
of three small mahogany tables. A writing table or book table built on
very simple lines will be needed also. If you happen to have a
conventional writing-desk, a gate-leg table would be charming for books
and things.
The wing chair and willow chairs, and the hour-glass Chinese chairs,
will go beautifully with mahogany things or with oak things. If most of
your furniture is to be oak, be sure and select well-made pieces stained
a soft brown and waxed. Oak furniture is delightful when it isn't too
heavy. A large gate-leg table of dark brown oak is one of the most
beautiful tables in the world. With it you would need a bench of oak,
with cane or rush seat; a small octagonal, or butterfly oak table for
your couch end, and one or two Windsor chairs. Oak demands simple,
wholesome surroundings, just as mahogany permits a certain feminine
elegance. Oak furniture invites printed linens and books and brass and
copper and pewter and gay china. While mahogany may be successfully used
with such things, it may also be used with brocade and fragile china and
carved chairs.
Use chintzes in your apartment, if you wish, but do not risk the light
ones in living-rooms. A chintz or printed linen of some good design on a
ground of mauve, blue, gray or black will decorate your apartment
adequately, if you make straight side curtains of it, and cover one
chair and possibly a stool with it. Don't carry it too far. If your
rooms are small, have your side curtains of coarse linen or raw silk in
dull blue, orange, brown, or whatever color you choose as the key color
of your room, and then select a dark chintz with your chosen color
dominant in its design, and cover your one big chair with that.
The apartment hall is most difficult, usually long and narrow and
uninteresting. Don't try to have furniture in a hall of this kind. A
small table near the front door, a good tile for umbrellas, etc., a good
mirror--that is all. Perhaps a place for coats and hats, but some halls
are too narrow for a card table.
The apartment with a dining-room entirely separated from the living-room
is very unusual, therefore I am hoping that you will apply all that I
have said about the treatment of your living-room to your dining-room as
well. People who live in apartments are very foolish if they cut off a
room so little used as a dining-room and furnish it as if it belonged to
a huge house. Why not make it a dining-and book-room, using the big
table for reading, between meals, and having your bookshelves so built
that they will be in harmony with your china shelves? Keep all your
glass and silver and china in the kitchen, or butler's pantry, and
display only the excellent things--the old china, the pewter tankard,
the brass caddy, and so forth,--in the dining-room.
However, if you have a real dining-room in your apartment, do try to
have chairs that will be comfortable, for you can't afford to have
uncomfortable things in so small a space! Windsor chairs and rush bottom
chairs are best of all for a simple dining-room, I think, though the
revival of painted furniture has brought about a new interest in the old
flare-back chairs, painted with dull, soft colored posies on a ground of
dull green or gray or black. These chairs would be charming in a small
cottage dining-room, but they might not "wear well" in a city apartment.
[Illustration: BUILT-IN BOOKSHELVES IN A SMALL ROOM]
If your apartment has two small bedrooms, why not use one of them for
two single beds, with a night stand between, and the other for a
dressing-room? Apartment bedrooms are usually small, but charming
furniture may be bought for small rooms. Single beds of mahogany with
slender posts; beds of painted wood with inset panels of cane; white
iron beds, wooden beds painted with quaint designs on a ground of some
soft color--all these are excellent for small rooms. It goes without
saying that a small bedroom should have plain walls, papered or painted
in some soft color. Flowered papers, no matter how delightful they may
be, make a small room seem smaller. Self-toned striped papers and the
"gingham" papers are sometimes very good. The nicest thing about such
modest walls is that you can use gay chintz with them successfully.
Use your bedrooms as sleeping-and dressing-rooms, and nothing more. Do
not keep your sewing things there--a big sewing-basket will add to the
homelike quality of your living-room. Keep the bedroom floor bare,
except for a bedside rug, and possibly one or two other rugs. This, of
course, does not apply to the large bedroom--I am prescribing for the
usual small one. Place your bed against the side wall, so that the
morning light will not be directly in your eyes. A folding screen
covered with chintz or linen will prove a God-send.
Perhaps you will have a guest-room, but I doubt it. Most women find it
more satisfactory and less expensive to send their guests to a nearby
hotel than to keep an extra room for a guest. The guest room is
impractical in a small apartment, but you can arrange to take care of an
over-night guest by planning your living-room wisely.
As for the kitchen--that is another story. It is impossible to go into
that subject. And anyway, you will find the essentials supplied for you
by the landlord. You won't need my advice when you need a broom or a
coffee pot or a saucepan--you'll go buy it!