From Kitchen to Garret: Hints for young householders

by J. E. Panton

Unless your windows are very small, as in sketch 16, never be without white curtains of some kind, for if you are the house resembles some one who has forgotten her cuffs and collar or white frillings, but if they are like the sketch, you cannot do better than use Pither’s old-gold-coloured, printed linen edged with ball fringe; this serves all purposes of blinds and curtains alike, and always looks artistic, while the windows are not obscured and stuffed up, as are those in most of our English houses.

And here let me say most emphatically that ordinary blinds are not necessary, and are never useful; if the house has very much sun, inside blinds are no use at all; the heat that makes most town houses unendurable is caused by the sun striking down on the glass of the window, and to obviate this the glass itself must be covered outside. Our summer is but a short one at best, but if we cannot bear the sun we must put up outside blinds, or hang grass mats over the glass outside; these are the only really necessary blinds; to say the least the others are unhealthy. The sun is the life-giver, after all, and he had better fade our curtains and our carpets than that the lack of his beams should fade our own and our children’s cheeks! This, too, is another reason why we should never buy very expensive curtains or carpets; fortunately hardly any of the materials I have spoken of cost much, while Kidderminster squares—my favourite matting and rugs—or even stained floors and rugs, are all within the powers of the humblest of us.

I myself prefer matting for a dining-room at 1s. 6d. a yard, and covered here and there with rugs, put down where the greatest amount of traffic may be expected; but this is expensive, if set against the pretty carpets in art colours, made at Kidderminster, and sold by the yard at about 3s. 6d. a yard, the colours of which are extremely good. And if we cannot afford matting in the dining-room, a carpet that would go very well with the room would be shades of very faint sage-green, with dashes of terra-cotta in. But I much prefer the matting, and should always advise this for any one who could afford it, and yet could not afford the Oriental carpet that is, of course, the carpet for a dining-room. The rugs range from 7s. 6d., but these are Scinde rugs, and do not wear very well. Liberty, Maple, and Shoolbred have all an excellent choice, but I think Maple’s rugs are the best for people with a small amount of money to spend; and there is this to consider about rugs, they can be shaken at least once a week and continually turned about, and when too shabby for downstairs they can be taken upstairs, finally dying an honourable death before the kitchen fire or by the bedsides of the maids. Still, much as I like matting, I must confess the total cost is more than three times the cost of a Kidderminster square, which in its turn can be taken up, shaken, and moved about, as, being square, there are no corners to consider, and no back and front and sides to think about either. But we must put carpet felt or paper-felt under our squares if we wish them to wear and to feel soft and pleasant under our feet; and it is as well to put down large sheets of brown paper before even the felt goes down. All this adds considerably to the wear of the carpet.

There is a curious habit in some parts of Canada of making a species of bed of hay under the carpet, and it gives a very pleasant feeling to any one walking thereon; of course soft, fine hay is chosen, and it is most carefully laid down, and evenly and tightly packed; and in a room on the basement floor, as so often rooms are situated in small suburban houses, it is a great comfort; it is very warm in winter and cool in summer, and if the hay-bed is made about twice a year, I believe it requires no further attention.

An old friend of mine who lived in poor circumstances in a stone-floor cottage in Dorsetshire, who had passed some years of her life in Canada, always stretched her carpet over such a bed, and I well remember how delightful her floor felt, and how she never suffered, as so many of her neighbours did, from rheumatism and other evils inseparable from the ordinary covering to a stone or brick floor. I have more than once recommended this in a basement kitchen or servants’ sitting-room, and never without hearing that it was pronounced a great and unfailing success and source of comfort to the domestics.

If, however, a Kidderminster square is chosen, the boards for about two feet from the wainscot must be stained a good brown shade: if the boards are pretty good, and do not require stopping with putty to keep out the draughts, as so many of our suburban houses require ‘stopping,’ owing to the shrinking of the green wood used, alas! for the purposes of floors, doors, and windows, Edwin or Angelina can well manage this themselves. Whiteley keeps Ryland’s stain ready prepared in a big tin jar, and with the right sort of brush this is soon put on; when dry it should be well and thoroughly polished with beeswax and turpentine, and if this is done weekly I am sure the floor will never require staining for many years; but if ‘stopping’ is necessary, the workmen employed can stain the floors too; for the extra charge will be but small, and it will save a back-ache, and insure the work being thoroughly and properly done.

These hints about carpets are perhaps a trifle prolix, but they will do for the whole of the house—of course varying the colours to suit the rooms, and being very careful in the selection of patterns. Mr. Morris has some of his very best designs manufactured in Kidderminster, so the cheap make of the mere carpet need not be sneered at; but we cannot afford Morris, much as we should like to do so, for his Kidderminsters are as costly as most people’s Brussels; and if we are careful, we can get nearly as pretty patterns elsewhere at one fourth the cost, but we must be very careful, for there are some red carpets, some blue, and some a fearful nondescript hue, suggestive of the workhouse—I know not why—that would irretrievably and utterly spoil any room in which they were put; but there is a royal blue with paler blue flowers, or rather ‘fan-like things,’ that is perfect; this is, however, sold by the yard, and has to be made into a square, without a border, and just trimmed with a woollen fringe, which is procurable at Colbourne’s, 82 Regent Street, and which wears magnificently: I have had one down now for three years in a room that experiences a great deal of traffic, and it is at the moment of writing as good as ever it was, and is admired by every one who comes in; and the sage-green carpet mentioned before is also quite safe to suit almost any room. This is also sold by the yard, and has to have a woollen fringe too.

If the house have bow-windows, an extra square of carpet, or else a Scinde rug at 7s. 6d., can be laid down there; there is not much ‘traffic’ in a bow-window, and the rugs look nicer than anything, and wear quite a reasonable time in such a locality, and these can be easily replaced. A piece of the carpet itself always looks out of place somehow, and spoils any room.

For a really good carpet, I like a fine Oriental carpet, with a good deal of white in it, or a Wilton, or velvet pile; but I always like something cheaper myself, as I do not like old carpets or old curtains. They must retain a certain amount of dust and dirt, and I therefore infinitely prefer either a good Kidderminster, or else the matting and rugs spoken of at first, which can be replaced when shabby without too great an effort for a moderate income. There are just one or two trifles that I should like to speak of here. Matting should be swept one way regularly, and by a proper matting brush. It can be washed with soap and a little water, and it has a wonderful way of never collecting dust that is marvellous. Oriental rugs and carpets should be swept one way only also; and the Kidderminster squares should be shaken often, but not continually swept; the shaking gets rid of the dirt, while sweeping wears them out much quicker than need be.