From Kitchen to Garret: Hints for young householders

by J. E. Panton

The floor should be stained two feet from the wall, wiped every day with a damp cloth to take up all the dust and fluff, and polished every Saturday regularly with beeswax and turpentine, the clean smell of which is always so nice and wholesome, I think, and makes a house pleasant at once; but before the staining is done great care should be taken, to see that the boards are planed, and that no splinters are in evidence, and that any gaps that there may be are properly stopped to keep out the draughts, then the staining may safely be done. A nice square of Kidderminster can then be chosen, and put down over the warm carpet felt, without which a thin carpet does not do for a nursery, because of itself it is not warm enough.

The walls and paint being of a pink, like the pink, say, of the inside of a rose, or of the lighter shade of coral, with no distinct and distracting pattern on the wall, a pretty flowery cretonne could be chosen for the dado and window curtains. I have seen one in a pale green shade, with fluffy balls of guelder-roses on, and groups of pinks which would be perfect; but this was so long ago that I fear it could not be had now, though, of course, others equally pretty are sure to be easily procurable. The doors where this cretonne was used were painted with the same flowers, which were also to be found on the cupboard doors, with small bright English birds poised here and there among them. It had a most cheerful effect, and a baby who lived there used to be contented for a long time by himself if he could only lie and ‘talk’ to the birds and flowers in a curious language all his very own.

But, if a blue room is preferred to the pink, that can be managed very cheaply, for I have lately discovered an almost perfect blue and white paper, sold by Pither and Co., of Mortimer Street, that is all it should be for a day nursery. The colour is clear and clean, and the pattern cheerful without fussily calling attention to itself, while its cheapness, 1s. a piece, would allow of its being renewed every now and then should it become shabby, and the paint can be blue, and a blue and white cretonne to harmonise with it can be had at Burnett’s for 9½d. a yard. It has a sort of pattern of daisies overlapping each other on it, and is very pretty indeed. The rail should be painted blue, and no little fingers can do any harm to this, while it would take years to make the cretonne dirty, if it be brushed now and then and occasionally cleaned with dry bread. The curtains to the windows can be made of the same cretonne lined and frilled, and would do away with the necessity of blinds if made as I so often recommend; and this would be really a great economy in any nursery, for I know well how often tassels are torn off and spoiled, the blind-cords broken, and the springs rendered quite unworkable, not only by the children, but by the under-nurses, who can never learn that a blind does not require the putting forth of immense strength to make it move; and will not realise that both bells and blinds answer to gentle handling as well as to the fiercer tug, which often enough brings the blind down on one’s head, and leaves the bell hanging out with its neck broken.

If we use the blue arrangement we could panel the doors and cupboards with cretonne, which always looks nice, and makes a wonderful difference at once in the look of a room.

If there are proper recesses by the fireplaces these should at once be utilised for cupboards, flush to the wall, so that no little heads can be banged against those cruel corners. These cupboards are most useful. The lower shelves can be used for rubbish—the delicious rubbish that is so much nicer than expensive toys; and the upper shelves can be used for the work in hand and better toys, kept for Sundays and holidays and those grand occasions when nursery company comes, and visitors may arrive who have no imaginativeness, or only see old bits of wood once sacred to cotton, shankless buttons, fir-cones, and scraps of silk and paper, where other bolder folk perceive strings of diamonds and pearls, and libraries of fairies, and wardrobes sacred to unknown but much-beloved friends; whose houses are the fir-cones, and who dress themselves magnificently in sweepings begged from the maid, or even from that proud lady, the dressmaker, whose occasional visits, with her ‘own machine,’ are something to look forward to by any small mother who has an army of dolls, and very little indeed to clothe them in.

Who amongst us cannot remember the intense bliss of our nursery cupboard, the delicious joy of having one place all our own, where we could hoard unchecked those thousand and one trifles that no drawing-room could be expected to give house-room to—where even nurse did not interfere, because our rubbish (rubbish, indeed!) kept us so delightfully quiet? Ay, and who amongst us who does recollect this can grudge a day nursery to even one child who requires it—all the more because it is a solitary little girl, and can make its own companions out of trifles, when otherwise its mother would be making it grown-up before its time, by never leaving it alone for a moment to those devices and play that keep it a child, and don’t allow it to grow up an ‘old person’ almost before it can stand steadily on its fat legs?

Given the blessed refuge of a nursery, with its appealing cupboard, and very little other furniture is required. A nice solid round table, with (please don’t faint, all ye æsthetic folk) oilcloth sewn strongly over it as a cover, because then no tablecloth is needed, save at meals, and there are no draperies to be caught hold of; and because this rubs clean every morning, because nothing stains it, and even milk can be washed off; a comfortable deep chair for nurse, low enough for her to hold baby comfortably and easily; a chair for each child, and one for company; and a delightful sofa, and nothing more is really required.

Why a sofa, say you? Because no one who has not one in a nursery can know how invaluable such a possession is. Children have often tiny ailments that are not bad enough for bed, and bed should never be resorted to in the daytime unless positively necessary. An aching head, a ‘stuffy’ cold, all these are much more bearable if a broad cosy sofa is available, while an occasional rest for a growing child is a great thing always to be able to secure; a child, recollect, who ever complains of being ‘so tired’ being a child that requires watching, not coddling, and to whom that sofa may prove little else but salvation.

This need not cost much either, for the beau-ideal of a nursery sofa is one that no fashionable person would look at now; it stands square on its feet, has a high square back and arms, no springs, only two big square cushions, and has some pillows of soft feathers, to mitigate the severity of the details, which—O shades of all my long-lost youth!—were the best things I ever had in all my life for ammunition, either at the sacking of a town or the defence of some Scottish castle; when, arrayed in a broad plaid sash brought back from Scotland by some one who knew how I adored the ‘Days of Bruce,’ and other works of the kind, the very names of which I have forgotten, I became in a moment Sir William Wallace himself, and was happier then, I dare say, than I have ever been since.

For there is another aspect to the nursery sofa that is not to be despised, besides its great use in illness or fatigue; it is a never-failing source of inspiration for regularly good games—it is a fortress, a whole city, a ship at sea, an elephant—in fact, anything any one likes to imagine it is. The broad square cushions are rafts to put off to sea in when the ship itself is destroyed; they are fire-escapes or desert islands, or icebergs at will; while no one who has not had them can possibly tell the joy it is to throw the soft pillows about, when nurse has put away the ornaments on the chimneypiece, and retired with her chair and her baby into the next room, where she is near enough to check unseemly revels, and yet not too near to come in for a share of the fray, which waxes fast and furious when the sofa and all its capabilities are fully appreciated, and where the coverings are warranted not to hurt.