Sometimes bookcases are used in combination with a permanent seat, as for example around a window, and the recess thus produced can be made very alluring. Permanent seats also utilize many otherwise unused corners and nooks. They have hinged tops and so can be used for storing miscellaneous household articles.
Paneling is an attractive wall treatment for many homes. The wall may be entirely covered with well proportioned and carefully molded wood panels, or it may be marked off into rectangles with a simple molding—which is known as “French paneling.” Paneling may be used in other rooms of the house also. Often it is accompanied by beamed ceiling, but ceiling beams can also be used without paneling, if you wish, and give character to a room. They can be used to modify the proportions of the room. They lend an interest to the interior that it might not otherwise have. The Curtis catalog shows wall panelings and ceiling beams of various designs.
In a small house, the rooms can be given the appearance of greater size if inter-room openings are used instead of doors. These wide portals throw the rooms together and permit larger vistas. They may have simple paneled buttresses, or they may contain bookcases, desks, or cabinets that take up very little more floor space than would the partition. In either case the newest and best Curtis designs have columns extending all the way from floor to ceiling.
In permanent furniture the tongue-and-groove mitred joint is used wherever practical. Note the differences between this construction and the common butt joint. With the former, no nails are used that mar the finished surface of the cabinet, and there is no incongruous contrast between edge and flat grain wood at the corners. Such a joint cannot open up as a result of humidity and temperature changes in the rooms.