Closet room should be struggled for in the building of a house. This is a point where the masculine intellect shows its weakness and the feminine its strength. A quick-witted woman will suggest to her architect, nook after nook of waste space to be utilized as closet room which would altogether escape his notice. No bedroom should be unfurnished in this regard. When closets are not built in, portable wardrobes should be supplied.
There is fallacy in the supposition that the most attractive portion of the house should be reserved as a “spare room” for the casual guest. The family should first be made comfortable; when that has been done, if one would use hospitality without grudging, it will be necessary to imitate the great woman of Shunem, and at least furnish a little chamber with the necessary bed, table, stool and candlestick. Moving out of one’s own room and doubling up with another for a night or two does very well in the holiday season, when the spirit of hospitality and good nature is in the air; but, ordinarily speaking, it is quite a task to empty the upper drawer of one’s bureau, and leave one’s own comfortable quarters.
So far as health, neatness and style are concerned, brass bedsteads are the best. They are very simple in form and construction, and so are some of the iron bedsteads, which can be kept absolutely nice and clean in any climate, and are, unlike brass, quite inexpensive. The most objectionable of all bedsteads is that
“Contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day,”
which is only to be tolerated where a parlor must serve temporarily as sleeping room. A well made bed is the essential piece of bedroom furniture, which may be hidden from view by a screen or curtains, but should not be slammed up and boxed in against the wall, or made to stand upon anything but its own merits.
Wire net springs are probably as good as can be got, and a feather bed under the mattress is an improvement to the best modern bed, if properly aired, turned and shaken daily. Mattresses should be remade and their contents pulled lightly apart before they grow matted or ridgy. Curled hair mattresses are, of course, the best, but English flock, excelsior, and straw, all make respectable beds, and can be made easier by covering them with thick comfortables or blankets, under the sheet. It is quite worth while to make slip covers for mattresses.
Sheets should have an allowance of at least three quarters of a yard for tucking in. Three yards will not be found too long for comfortable home sheets. Blankets are apt to be too short. It is better to tear a pair of blankets apart, and finish the edge with a buttonhole stitch in worsted. The old fashioned “blanket stitch,” as it was called, a long and short stitch alternating, is very pretty. This finish is better than binding, which is apt to shrink and tear off.
It seems a waste of time to make cotton patchwork when pretty quilts can be bought so cheap. In the days when cotton cloth was costly, every scrap was worth saving, but now patchwork seems only serviceable in teaching little girls to sew overhand seams.
Hand-wrought spreads look well when pulled up over the pillows, covering the whole bed, and should be treated with respect and carefully folded and laid away at night.