THE BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR.
[Illustration]
THE
BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR.
BY
LADY BARKER.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1878.
[_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved._]
_FIFTH THOUSAND._
LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
PREFACE.
Too much attention can scarcely be expended on our sleeping rooms in
order that we may have them wholesome, convenient and cheerful. It is
impossible to over-estimate the value of refreshing sleep to busy
people, particularly to those who are obliged to do much brainwork. In
the following pages will, we hope, be found many hints with regard to
the sanitary as well as the ornamental treatment of the bed-room.
W. J. LOFTIE.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--AN IDEAL BED-ROOM--ITS WALLS 1
II.--CARPETS AND DRAPERIES 15
III.--BEDS AND BEDDING 26
IV.--WARDROBES AND CUPBOARDS 44
V.--FIRE AND WATER 57
VI.--THE TOILET 70
VII.--ODDS AND ENDS OF DECORATION 80
VIII.--THE SICK ROOM 94
IX.--THE SPARE ROOM 110
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
A CORNER WARDROBE _Frontispiece_
DUTCH BEDSTEAD 27
BEDSTEAD AND TOILET STAND 30
OAK BEDSTEAD 32
CHILDREN'S BEDSTEADS 37
AN INDIAN SCREEN 41
WARDROBE 45
ANTIQUE LOCK-UP 48
BUREAU 49
TRAVELLING CHEST OF DRAWERS 51
CHINESE CABINET 55
FIRE-PLACE 58
CHAIR AND TABLE 59
BEDSIDE TABLE 62
FIRE-PLACE 63
CANDLESTICK 65
FRENCH WASHING-STAND 66
CHINESE WASHING-STAND 67
CORNER-STAND 68
SHRINE "À LA DUCHESSE" 71
ANTIQUE TOILET TABLE 72
CHEST OF DRAWERS 73
A SIMPLE TOILET TABLE 76
CANE ARM-CHAIR 81
CANE SOFA 82
OAK SETTLE 83
LARGE ARM-CHAIR 84
CORNER FOR PIANO 85
PRINT-STAND 88
SOUTH AMERICAN PITCHER 91
INVALID TABLE 107
DESK 112
THE
BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR.
CHAPTER I.
AN IDEAL BED-ROOM.--ITS WALLS.
It is only too easy to shock some people, and at the risk of shocking
many of my readers at the outset, I must declare that very few bed-rooms
are so built and furnished as to remain thoroughly _sweet_, fresh, and
airy all through the night. This is not going so far as others however.
Emerson repeats an assertion he once heard made by Thoreau, the American
so-called "Stoic,"--whose senses by the way seem to have been
preternaturally acute--that "by night every dwelling-house gives out a
bad air, like a slaughter-house." As this need not be a necessary
consequence of sleeping in a room, it remains to be discovered why one's
first impulse on entering a bed-room in the morning should either be to
open the windows, or to wish the windows were open. Every one knows how
often this is the case, not only in small, low, ill-contrived houses in
a town, but even in very spacious dwellings, standing too amid all the
fragrant possibilities of the open country. It is a very easy solution
of the difficulty to say that we ought always to sleep with our windows
wide open. The fact remains that many people cannot do so; it is a
risk--nay, a certainty--of illness to some very young children, to many
old people, and to nearly all invalids. In a large room the risk is
diminished, because there would be a greater distance between the bed
and window, or a space for a sheltering screen. Now, in a small room,
where fresh air is still more essential and precious, the chances are
that the window might open directly on the bed, which would probably
stand in a draught between door and fireplace as well.
I take it for granted that every one understands the enormous importance
of having a fireplace in each sleeping-room in an English house, for the
sake of the ventilation afforded by the chimney. And even then a sharp
watch must be kept on the house-maid, who out of pure "cussedness"
(there is no other word for it) generally makes it the serious business
of her life to keep the iron flap of the register stove shut down, and
so to do away entirely with one of the uses of the chimney. If it be
impossible to have a fireplace in the sleeping-room, then a ventilator
of some sort should be introduced. There is, I believe, a system in use
in some of the wards of St. George's Hospital and in the schools under
the control of the London School Board, known as Tobin's Patent.
Ventilation is here secured by means of a tube or pipe communicating
directly with the outer air, which can thus be brought from that side of
the building on which the atmosphere is freshest. If report can be
trusted, this system certainly appears to come nearer to what is wanted
than any with which we are yet acquainted, for it introduces fresh air
without producing a draught, and the supply of air can be regulated by a
lid at the mouth of the pipe. A sort of double-star is often introduced
in a pane of glass in the window, but this is somewhat costly, and it
would not be difficult to find other simpler and more primitive methods,
from a tin shaft or loosened brick in a wall, down to half a dozen large
holes bored by an auger in the panel of the door, six or eight inches
away from the top, though this is only advisable if the door opens upon
a tolerably airy landing or passage. If it does not, then resort to some
contrivance, as cheap as you please, in the outer wall leading directly
into the fresh air. In most private houses it is generally possible to
arrange for those to whom an open window at night is a forbidden luxury,
that they should sleep with their door open. A curtain, or screen, or
even the open door itself will ensure the privacy in which we all like
to do our sleeping, but there should then be some window open on an
upper landing, day and night, in all weathers. Believe me, there are few
nights, even in our rigorous climate, where this would be an
impossibility. Of course common sense must be the guide in laying down
such rules. No one would willingly admit a fog or storm of driving wind
and rain into their house, but of a night when the atmosphere is so
exceptionally disturbed it is sure to force its way in at every cranny,
and keep the rooms fresh and sweet without the necessity of admitting a
large body of air by an open window.
Supposing then that the laws of ventilation are understood and acted
upon, and that certain other sanitary rules are carried out which need
not be insisted upon here,--such as that no soiled clothes shall ever,
upon any pretence, be kept in a bed-room,--then we come to the next
cause of want of freshness in a sleeping-room:--Old walls. People do not
half enough realise, though it must be admitted they understand a great
deal more than they once did, how the emanations from the human body are
attracted to the sides of the room and stick there. It is not a pretty
or poetical idea, but it is unhappily a fact. So the only thing to be
done is to provide ourselves with walls which will either wash or clean
in some way, or are made originally of some material which neither
attracts nor retains these minute particles.
Nothing can be at once cleaner or more wholesome than the beautiful
wainscotted walls we sometimes see in the fine old country houses built
in Queen Anne's reign. A bed-room of that date, if we except the bed
itself, and the probable absence of all bathing conveniences, presented
a nearly perfect combination of fresh air, spotless cleanliness, and
stately and harmonious beauty to the eyes of an artist or the nose of a
sanitary inspector. The lofty walls of panelled oak, dark and lustrous
from age and the rubbing of many generations of strong-armed
old-fashioned house-maids, were walls which could neither attract nor
retain objectionable atoms, and ventilation was unconsciously secured by
means of high narrow windows, three in a row, looking probably due
south, and an open chimney-place, innocent of "register stoves" or any
other contrivance for blocking up its wide throat. Such a room rises up
clearly before the eyes of my mind, and I feel certain that I shall
never forget the deliciously quaint and hideous Dutch tiles in the
fireplace, nor the expressive tip of Ahasuerus' nose in the tile
representing his final interview with Haman. How specially beautiful was
the narrow carved ledge, far above one's head, which served as a
mantelpiece, over which simpered a faded lady with low, square-cut
boddice, her fat chin held well into the throat, and a rose in her pale,
wan little hand. A dado ran round this room about five feet from the
floor, and I used to be mean enough, constantly, to try if it was a
dust-trap, but I never could find a speck. That was because the
house-maid had been taught how to wipe dust off and carry it bodily
away, not merely, as Miss Nightingale complains, to disturb it from the
place where it had comfortably settled itself, and disperse it about the
room.
But what I remember more vividly in this room than even its old-time
beauty, was the thorough _conscientiousness_ of every detail. The
cornice might fairly claim to rank as a work of art, not only from its
elaboration, but from its finish. The little square carved panels on
each side of the chimney, serving as supports to the mantelpiece, held
but one leaf or arabesque flourish apiece, yet each corner was as
sharply cut, each curve as smoothly rounded, as though it had been
intended for closest scrutiny. The wood of neither walls nor floors had
warped nor shrunk in all these years, and the low solid doors hung as
true, the windows opened as easily, as if it had all been built
yesterday. What do I say? built yesterday? Let any of us begin to
declare his experience of a new, modern house, and he will find many to
join in a doleful chorus of complaints about unseasoned wood,
ill-fitting joists, and hurried contrivances to meet domestic ills, to
say nothing of the uncomfortable effects of "scamped" work generally. In
spite of our improved tools, and our greater facilities for studying and
copying good designs, I am convinced that one reason why we are going
back in decorative taste to the days of our great grandmothers is, that
we are worn out and wearied with the evanescent nature of modern
carpenter's and joiner's work--to say nothing of our aroused perceptions
of its glaring faults of taste and tone. Unhappily we cannot go back to
those dear, clean, old oaken walls. They would be quite out of the reach
of the majority of purses, and would be sure to be imitated by some
wretched sham planking which might afford a shelter and breeding-place
for all kinds of creeping things. No; let those who are fortunate
enough to possess or acquire these fine old walls treasure them and keep
them bright as their grandmothers did; not _whitewash_ them, as actually
has been done more than once by way of "lightening" the room. And who
shall say, after that, that the Goths have ever been successfully driven
back?
I dwell on the walls of the bed-room because I believe them to be the
most important from a sanitary as well as from a decorative point of
view, and because there is really no excuse for not being able to make
them extremely pretty. You may tint them in distemper of some delicate
colour, with harmoniously contrasting lines at the ceiling, and so be
able to afford to have them fresh and clean as often as you choose, or
you may paint them in oils and have them washed constantly. But there is
a general feeling against this cold treatment of a room which, above all
others, should, in our capricious climate, be essentially warm and
comfortable. The tinted walls are pretty when the curtains to go with
them are made of patternless cretonne of precisely the same shade,
manufactured on purpose, with exactly the same lines of colour for
bordering. I am not sure, however, that the walls I individually prefer
for a bed-room are not papered. There are papers made expressly, which
do not attract dirt, and which can be found of lovely design. A
bed-room paper ought never to have a distinct, spotted pattern on it,
lest, if you are ill, it should incite you to count the designs or
should "make faces at you." Rather let it be all of one soft tint, a
pearly gray, a tender sea-shell pink, or a green which has no arsenic in
it; but on this point great care is requisite. You should also make it
your business to see, with your own eyes, that your new paper, whatever
its pattern or price, is not hung _over_ the old one, and that the walls
have been thoroughly stripped, and washed, and dried again before it is
put on.
Bed-room walls, covered with chintz, stretched tightly in panels, are
exceedingly clean and pretty, but they must be arranged so as to allow
of being easily taken down and cleaned. The prettiest walls I ever saw
thus covered, were made of chintz, with a creamy background and tendrils
of ivy of half a dozen shades of green and brown artfully blended,
streaming down in graceful garlands and sprays towards a dado about four
feet from the ground. It was a lofty room, and the curtains, screens,
&c., were made to match, of chintz, with sprays of ivy, and a similar
border. I know other bed-room walls where fluted white muslin is
stretched over pink or blue silk (prettiest of all over an apple-green
_batiste_). I dislike tapestry extremely for bed-room walls; the
designs are generally of a grim and ghostly nature, and even if they
represent simpering shepherds and shepherdesses, they are equally
tiresome. There is a Japanese paper, sometimes used for curtains, which
really looks more suitable and pretty when serving as wall-hangings in
the bed-rooms of a country house. I know a whole wing of "bachelors'
quarters" papered by fluted Japanese curtains, and they are exceedingly
pretty. The curtains of these rooms are of workhouse sheeting lined and
bordered with Turkey red, and leave nothing to be desired for quaint
simplicity and brightness. I must ease my mind by declaring here that I
have a strong prejudice against Japanese paper except when used in this
way for wall-decoration. The curtains made of it are not only a sham,
pretending to be something which they are not--a heinous crime in my
eyes--but they are generally of very ugly patterns, and hang in stiff,
ungraceful folds, crackling and rustling with every breath of air,
besides being exceedingly inflammable.
Of course the first rule in bed-room decoration, as in all other, is
that it should be suitable to the style of the house, and even to the
situation in which the house finds itself. The great point in the
wall-decoration of a town bed-room is that you should be able to replace
it easily when it gets dirty, as it is sure to do very soon if your
windows are kept sufficiently open. I _have_ known people who kept the
windows of both bed and sitting-rooms always shut for fear of soiling
the walls. I prefer walls, under such conditions, which can be cheaply
made clean again perpetually. There are wall-papers by the score,
artistically simple enough to please a correct taste, and sufficiently
cheap not to perceptibly shrink the shallowest purse.
But in the country it is every one's own fault if they have not a lovely
bed-room. If it be low, then let the paper be suitable--something which
will not dwarf the room. I know a rural bed-room with a paper
representing a trellis and Noisette roses climbing over it; the carpet
is shades of green without any pattern, and has only a narrow border of
Noisette roses; the bouquets, powdered on the chintzes, match, and
outside the window a spreading bush of the same dear old-fashioned rose
blooms three parts of the year. That is a bower indeed, as well as a
bed-room. Noisette roses and rosebuds half smothered in leaves have been
painted by the skilful fingers of the owner of this room on the
door-handles and the tiles of the fireplace as well as embroidered on
the white quilt and the green cover of the writing-table. But then I
acknowledge it is an exceptionally pretty room to begin with, for the
dressing-table stands in a deep bay window, to which you ascend by a
couple of steps. Belinda herself could not have desired a fairer shrine
whereat to worship her own beauty.
The memory of other walls rises up before me; even of one with plain
white satiny paper bordered by shaded pink ribbon, not merely the stiff
paper-hanger's design, but cut out and fixed in its place by a pair of
clever hands. This border of course looked different to anything else of
the kind I had ever seen; but according to strict rules of modern taste
it was not "correct." Yet a great deal depends on the way a thing is
done. I see the Misses Garrett frowning as I go on to say that here and
there a deep shadow was painted under it, and its bows and ends drooped
down at the corners of the room, whilst over the fireplace they made the
bright, circling border for a chalk drawing of a rosy child's head. But
it _was_ a pretty room, notwithstanding its original faulty design, and
I describe it more as an illustration of the supremacy of a real genius
for decoration over any hard and fast rule than as an example to be
copied. Rules are made for people who cannot design for themselves, and
original designs may be above rules, though they should never be above
taste.
I might go on for ever describing bed-room walls instead of only
insisting on their possessing the cardinal virtues of cleanliness and
appropriateness. Whether of satin or silk, of muslin or chintz, or of
cheapest paper, nothing can be really pretty and tasteful in
wall-decoration which is not scrupulously clean, without being cold and
glaring, and it should be in harmony with even the view from the
windows. Every room should possess an air of individuality--some
distinctive features in decoration which would afford a clue to the
designer's and owner's special tastes and fancies. How easy it is to
people old rooms with the imaged likeness of those who have dwelt in
them, and how difficult it would be to do as much for a modern bower!
If I had my own way, I would accustom boys as well as girls to take a
pride in making and keeping their bed-rooms as pretty and original as
possible. Boys might be encouraged to so arrange their collections of
eggs, butterflies, beetles, and miscellaneous rubbish, as to combine
some sort of decorative principle with this sort of portable property.
And I would always take care that a boy's room was so furnished and
fitted that he might feel free, there at least, from the trammels of
good furniture. He should have bare boards with only a rug to stand on
at the bed-side and fireplace, but he should be encouraged to make with
his own hands picture-frames, bookcases, brackets, anything he liked, to
adorn his room, and this room should be kept sacred to his sole use
wherever and whenever it was possible to do so. Girls might also be
helped to make and collect tasteful little odds and ends of ornamental
work for their own rooms, and shown the difference between what is and
is not artistically and intrinsically valuable, either for form or
colour. It is also an excellent rule to establish that girls should keep
their rooms neat and clean, dust their little treasures themselves, and
tidy up their rooms before leaving them of a morning, so that the
servant need only do the rougher work. Such habits are valuable in any
condition of life. An eye so trained that disorder or dirt is hideous to
it, and a pair of hands capable of making such conditions an
impossibility in their immediate neighbourhood, need be no unworthy
addition to the dowry of a princess.