DISTINCTIVE HALL FURNITURE
The hall really sounds the keynote for the whole house, and does much to make or mar its beauty; it is the place in which strangers and guests form their first and last impressions of the home and the ideals and tastes of the household.
In most houses the decorative importance of the hall is undervalued and the room itself is underfurnished and far less inviting and attractive than it could and should be. In order to expand sales of hall furniture by the suggestion and sale of related merchandise, or by influencing home owners to refurnish, you will require some knowledge of the individual rooms and their present furnishings, and a fair knowledge of the principles, processes, and materials involved in hall decoration.
Just how much information you consider essential, and when and how to ask for it, will of course depend upon your judgment of your customer's taste, intelligence, and disposition. Taking retail practice as a whole, it is certain that more time is wasted and more potential sales lost by failure to secure adequate preliminary information than by unnecessary or unsuccessful attempts to do so.
HALL DECORATIONS: PRINCIPLES, PROCESSES, AND MATERIALS
The hall should have an atmosphere of warmth and hospitable welcome, a note of rich but quiet dignity, and a real quality of interest and charm. Its hospitableness can be insured by emphasis upon warm color and properly shaded light. Richness of effect is produced by emphasis upon ornamented as opposed to plain surfaces, particularly in the floor covering, walls, furniture, and accessories. Dignity results from the use of long lines in the interior trim, border lines of the rugs, and length or height in the furniture where practicable, and also of formal balance in furniture arrangement. Interest and charm are secured by a free use of color and texture, and a measure of distinction in the design of furniture and accessories.
Relation of the Hall to Adjoining Rooms.
The hall must announce or suggest some of the decorative elements of connecting rooms, and accordingly must have many points of resemblance and harmony in coloring, line, and texture. In choice of the "key" pieces of furniture, which give distinction and smartness to the hall, there should be similarity in outline and proportion to the "key" living room pieces, but identity in period style is wholly unnecessary. High-backed seventeenth century chairs of the more slenderly proportioned types could be used in the hall opening into a Sheraton dining room without marring the sense of harmony in the suite.
Courtesy American Furniture Mart.
Figure 39.—Ideal for the hall is a cedar chest which serves the duo-purpose of providing valuable storage space as well as being decorative. This mahogany chest, built to resemble a chest of drawers, has a cedar lined bottom drawer. The chest proper is the depth of the first and second sham drawers. The oval mirror, a fitting accessory, has a gold-leaf frame.
Wall Treatments for the Hall.
When the walls are of plain or ornamental plaster, calcimined, or painted in oil, they should match the adjoining room if either is small or both rooms are small, in order to gain an effect of spaciousness. Where the hall and the adjoining room both are large, the walls may differ in hue; but marked difference in tone is unpleasant. For example, light stone walls in the hall and medium light green in the living room will be agreeable; dark stone and pale green, disagreeable.
When the walls are papered, the effect will be more interesting if the hall paper is different from that of adjoining rooms. If the hall is small, its paper should match that in the adjoining rooms rather closely in hue and tone, differing in texture or pattern, or in the fact that one paper is figured and the other plain. Small halls are high in proportion to their width. A figured paper helps to correct the proportions, whereas a stripe would raise the apparent height of the ceiling.
When the walls are plain, sufficient ornament to enrich the room and relieve it from any effect of thinness must be supplied by floor coverings, draperies, furniture, and accessories.
Floor Coverings for the Hall.
In a decorative sense, floor coverings are more important in the hall than in any other room, because the floor area is smaller in proportion to wall area, and there are fewer interesting pieces of furniture, and relatively fewer accessories. Here are some practical suggestions:
Linoleum is increasingly used for the hall since it permits the user to express her originality and good taste in many interesting forms. Plain or mottled linoleum with an attractive motif or monogram set into the center is both decorative and practical. A border or trim, in keeping with the architectural style of the room, also adds to the decoration. The linoleum may harmonize in color with the floor covering of the room adjoining or may carry out its own color scheme in keeping with the theme of the hall.
If the hall adjoins the living room it is well to use the same floor covering as in the living room since this has a tendency to make both the hall and the living room appear larger. If small rugs are used in the hall they may be of contrasting tone to the living room rug or may blend with the general color scheme.
Stair carpets are desirable for the following reasons:
They are more comfortable, less noisy and easier to keep in condition than bare treads.
They are safer, especially for children and old people.
They make the hall far more hospitable and inviting.
They add a much needed note of color to the room.
They serve to unite lower and upper floors artistically by a sweeping line of color.
Draperies for the Hall.
Except in the case of doors with a metal grille, or recessed doors, Venetian blinds, or curtains, or both, are desirable on the doors and sidelight of a hall of ordinary size and architectural character, because they ensure a sense of privacy, temper the light, add the interest of color and texture and help to invest the hall with a quality of intimacy and hospitality.
HALL FURNITURE MUST BE DISTINCTIVE
Hall furniture must fit the room in scale. Avoid pieces so small and thin as to seem poor, weak, and inadequate, or so large as to crowd the room and destroy its decorative balance. In general, use furniture of slender proportions against light smooth walls, and thicker or more massive furniture against darker and rougher walls.
It is highly important to use distinctive pieces in the hall; partly because it is from this room that the visitor receives his first impression of the house, and partly because the room can use but few pieces, which are seen against such relatively large wall spaces that they must be of unusual interest in order to redeem the room from bareness and a commonplace quality.
Hall furniture should reveal as much variety as is consistent with the necessary harmony. Matched pieces usually are to be avoided. Even in the case of console table and mirror, a mahogany table, for example, usually will be more pleasing with a gold or lacquer mirror of harmonious shape than with a matched piece in mahogany. Differences in woods, finishes, ornamental detail, and height add interest to the room through variety.
As minimum equipment, the hall should have a table or cabinet with a mirror, and something on which to sit. Table and mirror constitute the dominant element; the mirror adds desirable spaciousness, and the charm of reflected vistas, and both are necessary for practical as well as artistic reasons. (See fig. 39.) A seat of some kind is necessary to ensure a sense of hospitality, and as a courtesy to the stranger who enters the home, but is not immediately admitted to its inner rooms. A chair, preferably of the straight high-backed type, a bench, or a low chest with cushion will meet this requirement.
STRENGTHEN DOMINANT ELEMENT
As the dominant element, table and mirror should not be dwarfed by the wall behind them. If for any reason a small table is placed against a wide wall space, a long wall banner or panel should be placed on the wall behind the mirror in order to build up the group at eye level. It may be built up at the base by a chair at one or both sides, torcheres, etc. Never use a mirror wider than the piece that stands below it, or a narrow mirror with a wide table, unless a wall panel also is used to supply the necessary width. Modern hand-woven tapestries often are used for hall walls when their cost is not prohibitive. Other devices for the purpose include panels made from damask, brocade, brocatelle, plain or figured velvet, real or imitation crewel, Indian or Persian calico prints. A panel often is used on the wall behind a low chest.
The hall table need not be of the conventional console type. When wall space permits, any long narrow table will serve, as will a round or square English card table, with the half-top either flat or raised against the wall. In the very small hall a large nest of tables can be used as a small console.
In many halls a lowboy or chest of drawers is decorative and useful. Other possible items include the decorative cabinet, small tables, flower stands, floor or banjo clock, screen, lamps, desk, love seat, radio, and cane or umbrella rack. Always check the possibilities of the hall in a house you furnish.
The general methods discussed in relation to piece and group sales of living room merchandise apply equally to the hall. In addition it should be noted that it is practically impossible to suggest the proper choice of hall furnishings in the absence of measured drawings, since both the number of pieces and their size are more definitely determined by floor and wall space than is the case in any other room. Every sale of hall furniture of any importance should be followed by a call at the house as soon after delivery as possible. If the new furniture does not fit the room, corrections may be made promptly, before any ill-will develops. Moreover, in many cases additional merchandise can be suggested and sold.