All furniture that is not actually built into or fastened to the wall and floors should be easily movable and easily cleaned. This at once precludes the purchase of heavy, upholstered chairs and large sofas. Wicker and rattan furniture, though not so artistic and costly as antique wood, is very light, and with good removable hair cushions, may be made quite as comfortable and far more cleanly than upholstered plush and damask. The cushions may be beaten at the same time as the rugs, and the dust thus taken out of the house. White enameled bedsteads and washstands are rapidly superseding the heavy wooden ones. It is a curious fact that although the persons of a family are of various sizes and ages, chairs are still bought by the half dozen, without reference to the people who are to sit upon them. Even in such minor matters as chairs and tea-cups, some account should be taken of individuality.
If all furniture be selected with these simple principles in mind, i. e., hygienic cleanliness, the minimum of labor for the housewife, and the comfort of those who are to use it, there remains only one other way in which to go astray: it may still be superlatively and positively ugly; or it may be comfortable, sanitary, easily moved, and yet be merely negatively ugly; or it may be made decorative by its graceful form, the color of its covering, or the carving upon it. The first principle of artistic decoration is that it must be wholly subordinated to the use of the object which it adorns. For instance, windows are for two purposes: to light the house and for seeing out. If a window opens on a barnyard or some unpleasant prospect, you may put up a sash curtain of light silk or muslin. Thus you obtain light but no view. But if you wish to see out of the window, sash curtains are absurd. In the ordinary private house, elaborate and heavy window curtains are out of place, both for sanitary and artistic reasons. Whenever cleanliness is a prime object, drapery should be movable and washable. Silk and velvet draperies are only to be tolerated where there is a retinue of maids to keep them clean.
The facility and cheapness of mill-work and lathe-work in wood has vitiated the taste of Americans to a terrible degree. Nearly all ready-made furniture is grooved, machine-carved, and ornamented in a way to violate not only the principles of beauty, but of strength and cleanliness as well. Ornament that does not mean anything is not merely commonplace but ugly. There are four chairs of different patterns, and costing from $1.50 to $15, in the room where I sit; all of them have legs. Now, legs are intended as a support, yet all these are grooved and beaded and hollowed out in spots, so that twice as much material as is necessary has been used to insure support. The ornamentation is not pretty, the hollows are inevitably full of dust, and they mean absolutely nothing to anybody who sees them. On the front crosspiece of one large chair is glued a design of leaves in oak, by way of ornament. If these had been carved out upon a beautiful strip of wood by the hand of a cunning workman, they would at least have meant a man’s thought and skill. As they are, they suggest merely a machine and a glue pot, and thousands of others as hideous as they. Contrast with this gingerbread furniture the plain, substantial colonial chairs and tables and sideboards, made of beautiful wood, almost without ornamentation, with shapely, slender, and strong legs and softly polished by hand. Cheapness and quantity have been secured by machinery at the expense of beauty and strength.
If the principle thus illustrated be true, then it follows that patterns of any sort, whether in carpets, wall paper, china, or drapery, must be very carefully used that they may not be more conspicuous than that which they decorate. The floor and the wall are the basis both of color-scheme and decoration. They are the background of the people who are to live there; they should, therefore, be rather inconspicuous, soft and indefinite in effect, and as becoming as possible to the human figures. If the climate be sunny and the room well lighted, the walls and floor may be dark and rich in effect; if the climate be uncertain and often cloudy, or the room badly lighted, the effect should be light and gay. Color is the chief means of producing this result: the walls and floors of living rooms should be of soft, neutral brown, yellow, red, green, or warm gray tints. Blue, though very lovely when carefully used, is cold in effect, and seldom satisfactory for living rooms, while the blue grays are positively chilling. Yellow in paler or richer shades, depending on the lighting of the room, is uniformly cheerful and satisfying; next to it rank the various terra cotta shades. Neither rug nor wall-covering should have large, striking designs; if having pattern at all, it should rather be of an indefinite, wandering design like the Japanese jute rugs, or of small inconspicuous conventional design, such as may be found in the best Brussels carpet.
If the floors, however, be poor and old they may be covered very inexpensively with thick, strong building paper which comes in beautiful tints and the rug may be laid on top of this; or with denim on top of newspapers, which is only a little more expensive, and which may be had in a variety of beautiful shades; or, best of all, with matting on top of paper. Matting is especially desirable because the dust sifts through below, and does not rise easily when swept. But the money spent to cover up a poor floor would often serve to lay a good new one, and this should be done whenever possible. For kitchen and, in some cases, for a dining room floor as well, nothing is so satisfactory as linoleum. It is impervious, warm, soft to the foot, easily kept in order by an occasional coat of oil, and to be had in agreeable patterns. It may also be used like denim, building paper, and matting, to cover up bad floors, and as a basis for the rug; while more expensive, it is also much more satisfactory than anything except a good hardwood floor. There is often far too great contrast between the furnishings of the living room and the parlor; between the “spare room” and the family bedrooms. The money spent in elegance which is shut up in a room rarely used would serve to add much to the comfort of the whole family. The guest will enjoy the hospitality offered all the more if not treated too ceremoniously.
The furnishing of the living room should always include several easy chairs, a good lounge, a place for books and magazines, and a thoroughly good reading lamp. If it can be afforded, a small room off the sitting room for writing and study is very desirable. It should contain book shelves, a large writing table or desk, and a good lamp. But if the extra room cannot be had, the desk and book shelves may be placed in the parlor. There should certainly be some place where the children may study or any member of the family may read and write uninterrupted. It is as irksome to write without proper appliances as to bathe without proper facilities.
The furniture and decorations of bedrooms can scarcely be too simple; the walls may be lighter and gayer than those of living rooms. Blue and white or pale green and white may be used as color-schemes for very sunny bedrooms, yellow or pink and white for less sunny ones. One or two single, white, enamelled iron bedsteads, a washstand, a bureau or a chest of drawers with glass above, two or three low, light chairs, and a table or desk at which one may write, is an ample furnishing, if there be a good closet or wardrobe. The rug need be only large enough to cover the space in front of the bed, bureau, and stand, if the floor be well matched and painted or oiled. A bedroom should give the impression of spotlessness and comfort; everything should be washable or cleanable; unless used also as a sitting room, it should not have a superfluous article in it. Mats, bric-a-brac, even many pictures, are quite out of place.
Since cost, styles and tastes differ so widely in different localities, no detailed directions can or should be given that will be generally applicable. If the principles illustrated in this chapter be correct, they will serve to guide and to develop the taste of many different kinds of persons.
CHAPTER XII
CLEANLINESS AND SANITATION—WATER SUPPLY AND SEWAGE
Filth and disease have gone hand in hand from the beginning of the world; but only during the last quarter-century have we known the true cause of infection, and why it is so closely associated with dirt. The danger of uncleanliness lies in the existence of certain microscopic organisms belonging to the vegetable kingdom, known popularly as microbes or germs, but more properly as bacteria. Bacteria, like the plants with which we are more familiar, thrive in moisture and moderate heat, but differ from them in many respects. Some of the more striking differences are structure and method of reproduction, many of them possessing the faculty of growing without sunlight. Bacteria are composed of minute masses of vegetable matter which vary from one ten-thousandth to one-thirty thousandth of an inch in length, and they reproduce by simple division. This process of multiplication may occur as often as once in half an hour; thus immense numbers may develop in a very short time. Under conditions unfavorable for growth, some species may form within their interior dense masses which are called spores. These resemble the seeds of higher plants in their function of distributing the species and in preserving life through intervals of time unfavorable for continuous multiplication.