THE STAIRWAY
For appearance" sake, if our stairway is well constructed of good woods, we should forbear to hide it. But there is no place in the house where little Willie can more effectively proclaim to all the household world his possession of double-nailed heels than on the unprotected rises of the stairway. Even the tiny heels of the mistress of the home seem to clump like the boots of a giant in their numberless journeys up and down. So the hall runner must have a place. Perhaps the carpet will be of red or green, depending on the walls, but it need cost little more than $1 per yard for a fair quality. It is put down with stair pads ($1 per dozen) and ordinary tacks, and the expenditure of 10 cents per yard for a professional layer will not be regretted.
The amateur who can do a really good job on a stair carpet is a rarity.
[Ill.u.s.tration: An artistic staircase hall.]
RUGS
The Biglow Bagdad domestic rug in 27 by 54 and 36 by 63-inch sizes is inexpensive but looks and wears well in the hall. The first size costs about $4 and the second $7. A little better quality in Anglo-Indian or Anglo-Persian costs a dollar or so more per rug. Where there is constant direct use in the hall we will do wisely to get either a moderate-priced article that may be renewed or something expensive that will wear indefinitely. Sometimes the latter is the more economical plan. Very often halls are so shaped that a rug must be made to order.
It is better to do this and have a good-sized rug that will lie well than to risk tripping and slipping with smaller ones.
For the living room a variety of choice in rugs is offered. Attempts to utilize a number of small rugs are not usually joyous in their outcome; besides, the floor s.p.a.ce is too badly broken up. The large center rug holds its own, with some reenforcement in the alcove or perhaps before the hearth.
What quality the rug shall be depends largely upon the length of our purse; yet sagacity and a modest fund will sometimes do more than plethora and no thought. Design selection is a task to vex the most patient, but we must not be drawn into a hurried decision. If we are near enough to the business house with which we are dealing, it is advisable to have a selection of rugs sent out for inspection on the floors. Seen in the salesroom and in our house they may present different aspects.
Generally speaking, the showiest designs are in the cheaper goods, and the showier a cheap article is the quicker its shoddy qualities will be made manifest. Therefore, if we must count the pennies on our living-room rug, let us select a simple design with a good body--something that will be un.o.btrusive even when it begins to appeal for replacement.
There is a considerable range of Wiltons, from the so-called Wilton velvet to the "Royal" Wilton. They are by no means the cheapest, though one may go fabulously beyond them in price; but their popularity shows them to be a good average quality, suited to the home planned on a modest scale. Body Brussels, although not affording such rich effects, also has many friends, and tapestry Brussels may be considered. There are names innumerable for rugs and carpets, some of which have little real significance. If one knows a good design when it is seen, a little common-sense observation of weights and weave and a thoughtful comparison of prices will help to secure the best selections. Here are some specimen sizes and prices quoted by one establishment:
SIZE. Body Brussels. Biglow Bagdad. Anglo-Indian.
6.0 x 9.0....... $18.00 $25.00 $30.00 8.3 x 10.6....... 22.50 30.00 45.00 9.0 x 10.6....... 25.00 35.00 50.00 10.6 x 12.0....... 32.50 45.00 65.00 10.6 x 13.6....... 35.00 52.50 75.00 11.3 x 15.0....... 42.50 60.00 80.00
Saxony Axminster, 9 by 12, is priced at $45, and is considered to be more serviceable than most grades of Wilton.
For the dining room the problem is about the same as for the princ.i.p.al apartment. The rug need not be so expensive as the one in the living room, but it must a.s.suredly be of the enduring sort.
The Scotch Caledon rugs sometimes solve the difficulty here. Indeed, they are not out of place in a really "homey" living room or elsewhere in the house. They are made of wool, woven like an ingrain, with no nap, and are especially pleasing for their artistic soft colorings, mostly in green or blue two-tone effects. They are, strictly speaking, not reversible, but some designs will permit use on both sides. While they do not wear quite so well as a Wilton, they come at least a fifth cheaper. Prices range from $9 for a 4.6 by 7.6 to $45 for a 12 by 15.
The sizes we have mentioned are standard. If our rooms have been planned in such wise as to require rugs to order we shall have to add ten per cent to our expenditures.
ORIENTAL RUGS
The subject of oriental rugs, to be intelligently discussed, would require an entire book, and there are books that may be and should be studied by those who can afford orientals. Most of us cannot. There are, indeed, good reasons for the high cost of the genuine oriental, in its superior coloring, wide range of design, and wonderful durability.
The right sort grows richer with age. But our plans are not so much for posterity as for present uses, and we can get along very well without testing our wits in the oriental rug market. It is a test of wits, for there are no standards of size or price, and spurious goods sometimes get into the best of hands. Small Daghestans and Baloochistans may be had even lower than $20, but anything we would care to have in living room or dining room would take $150 to $200 from our bank account.
[Ill.u.s.tration: An oriental rug of good design: Shirvan.]
KITCHEN AND UPPER FLOORS
In the kitchen, and perhaps in a rear vestibule, unless the floor is of a sort to be easily wiped up, linoleum may be demanded. The upper hall will require a continuation of the stair runner, with perhaps a rug if it broadens out at the landing. For the bed chambers the question of individual use must be thought of. Brussels rugs will do in most cases. A large rug means considerable shifting to get at the floor, but is the more comfortable. Smaller rugs will permit sweeping under the bed without moving it far, and should be placed under the casters, which will injure the hard-wood floors if allowed to rest directly thereupon.
MATTING AND CORDOMAN CLOTH
Next in choice would be to spend 25 or 30 cents a yard for matting and cover the entire floor, adding one or two rugs to head off the shivery feeling that arises from a contact of bare feet with cold matting on a winter morning. The casters will cut the matting, too; we must look out for that. A border of flooring, painted or not, may be left; but generally, if anything is to be fastened down, it should cover the entire s.p.a.ce, avoiding the ugly acc.u.mulation of dust that otherwise gathers under the edges.
More expensive than matting, but likely to be quite satisfactory, is cordoman cloth, a floor covering that comes in plain colors and may be easily swept and wiped up. It costs from 45 to 55 cents per yard, and the wadded cotton lining that goes with it is very cheap. Considering its greater durability than matting, cordoman is really the more economical, and the homemaker will do well to investigate its merits.
CHILDREN"S ROOM AND "DEN"
For the children"s room linoleum will probably stand the wear and tear, prove more hygienic, and do as much toward deadening noise as anything short of an impossible padding could do. On the porch a crex-fiber rug or two--the sort that stand rain and resist moths--may be desired, but they can wait until we are settled and have found our bearings. The "den," if there is to be one, or the separate library, may in the one instance be left to individual caprice, in the other to good judgment in suiting it to the prevailing thought.
USES OF THE DECORATOR
If we have not done so before, when we take up consideration of the walls we will, if we can afford it, call in a professional decorator.
First, of course, we will make sure that he really may be of service to us, for his duty is to give practical and artistic development to the more or less vague ideas of which we have become possessed, and if he seems, from examples of previous work, to be wedded to a "style" of his own that would not jibe with our aspirations, we would better try to struggle along without him.
But it is possible to secure the services of a decorative artist for a sum not necessarily tremendous, and if we get hold of a sensible fellow his advice will be, in the end, worth much more than the extra outlay.
If he is a sincere artist, he will plan just as carefully for a modest six-room cottage as for a mansion, and he will be able to take the good points of our own schemes and adapt them to expert application without making us feel too insignificant.
Explicit advice as to decoration, where there are thousands of us, each in different circ.u.mstances and with variant tastes, would be rather an absurdity. We may emphasize to ourselves, however, a few phases of the decorative problem in which lack of thought would lose to us some of the joys of a house perfected.
If we are not to employ a decorator we must study out the problem for ourselves. To leave it for the painter and paperhanger to settle would be a fatal error. Much knowledge may be gained by the study of books and magazine articles, provided they are very recent. It will be advisable to weigh this knowledge in the scales of practical observation, however, in houses of late date. This is not so much because of changes in fashion as for the reason that improvements in process are always being made, and even the omnipresent folk who write books sometimes overlook a point. Concerning fashion, which of course has its sway in decoration, we will remember that the simplest treatment survives longest.
WOOD IN DECORATION
It seems that with the steady increase in cost of lumber we have grown more and more to appreciate the beauty of our woods. At any rate, wood is being used more extensively than ever in interior finishing. This is in some ways a healthy tendency, as it makes for simplicity and admits of artistic treatment at a reasonable cost.
Hall, living room, and dining room, for instance, may be treated with a high or low wood wainscoting and wooden panels extending to a wooden cornice at the ceiling. The wood may be a weathered oak, and between the panels is a rough plaster in gray or tinted to suit the house scheme. Friezes and plastic cornices are somewhat on the wane, in smaller houses at least; though, of course, they will never go out of use altogether.
PANELS AND PLASTER
This plaster effect is less expensive than 40-cent burlap or ordinary white calcimine or paper. The picture molding may be at the bottom of the cornice. Sometimes the cornice is dropped to a level with the tops of the doors and windows (usually about seven feet), leaving a frieze of two or three feet, the molding then going to the top of the cornice.
Ceilings and friezes of ivory or light yellow are usually in good taste.
The living room may carry out the panel and plaster effect, but is more likely to demand a simple paper of good quality with no border. Here, as in the hall, the wooden (or plastic) cornice with no frieze is suggested. Grilles are discarded, and portieres are avoided where possible.
THE BEAMED CEILING
In the dining room the beamed ceiling has been found so appropriate that it continues popular. It is simple, easily maintained, and has the broad, deep lines that put one at ease. Here it is advisable to carry a wooden wainscoting up to about 3 1/2 feet, the panels continuing to the ceiling. Tapestry, burlap, or plaster may show above. Plate shelves are somewhat in disfavor, partly because of abuse and partly because the tendency is to eliminate all dust-catchers that are not necessities. Where doors and windows are built on a line (as they should be), shelves are sometimes placed over them. But there should not be too many broken lines if we would preserve the comfortable suggestion of the beamed ceiling.