Nooks and Corners / being the companion volume to 'From Kitchen to Garret'

by J. E. Panton

and is always a pleasure to look at. The tambourine is hung on the dado, which is of a very good yellow and white matting and is headed with bamboo, and despite the favour into which friezes have grown of late years, a favour they quite deserve I must say, I still cling to the dado in the dining-and drawing-rooms; in the former they give solidity to the wall, which they always keep tidy; in the latter they serve admirably as places on which to hang our favourite nicknacks and those small sketches and pictures which we prize, and which would almost be lost to sight were we to hang them above the height of the dado-rail, where we could not have them near us; so I strongly advise a dado whenever we can have one in the drawing-room, and I have been lately confirmed in my opinion by seeing two newly decorated rooms where the dado was useless as far as regarded the hanging of pet possessions, but it was so decorative that I am forced to pause here for a moment and give a description of them both.

In room No. 1 the wall-paper was my favourite yellow and white from Mr. Smee; all the paint was a deep ivory, and the dado-rail was ivory too; for about a yard below the rail the wall was coloured primrose, and over this was hung a full soft curtain of yellow silk closely plaited on tiny rings, which again were hung on nails below the rail, which curved out over them and hid them completely; this curtain could be taken down and shaken and replaced every week if desired, while, of course, during absence from town the silk would be folded up and put away. The loose curtain looks charming round the room, which is a very tiny one, and has been admirably arranged by Mr. Smee with a fitted seat at one side of the wall, with side curtains to give an idea of privacy, and above that is a long bookcase; the curtains are of the beautiful larkspur cretonne which has yellow and blue in it; the carpet is a deep red, to give more colour, as the room is to be used for day, and therefore requires to be made to look warmer than could be done were only blue and yellow used; and the furniture is all ivory, and upholstered in different brocades; albeit these are also covered with loose cretonne covers in the larkspur cretonne, which is 2s. 10d. a yard, but really deserves to cost as much, it is so pretty, although I do own it is rather expensive for a mere cretonne.

The other room in which I saw the curtain dado was much more sombre in design and colouring; and I do not for one moment recommend such a distressingly dark arrangement, although I do most heartily commend the clever designer of this original room. The dado was not the straight curtain which goes all round the room, which I have been writing about, but it started from the window at one end five feet above the floor; this continued for halfway along the wall, where it suddenly lowered to within three feet of the floor, leaving a piece of wall about three feet across and two deep; after running along for three feet at this lowered angle, it rose again and continued along the wall to the door. Just on the other side of the door the curtain began at three feet from the wainscoting, and continued for about five feet, when it rose once more, and continued at the first altitude for the rest of the wall, which ended in a corner; the curtain lowered from that to the fireplace, which, with its overmantel, filled one square, the dado beginning once more at the five-foot altitude after the fireplace was passed. The curtain was moss-green serge, and was hung from a pole painted moss-green, with brass rings, which were en évidence; and above the curtain the wall was covered with a very good Japanese leather paper; the squares made by the dropping of the curtain being filled in one place by a choice picture, in another by an admirably designed bracket for books and china, and in another by a square beaten brass shield holding an elaborate and beautiful clustered candelabra; and had the drapery been of some bright colour, or some really decorative brocade, the house would have been as charming as it was original, but, arranged with the dark Japanese paper and the much darker drapery, the whole effect was so depressing, that I felt, were I obliged to remain in that house, I should have committed suicide, for my spirits would never have borne up under it. But it was a dark day, as the owner pointed out, when I told him, at his request, what I thought of it all. But I maintain that as most of our English days, and more especially our London days, are extremely dark, we are bound to try and make our rooms so beautiful that they, at least, shall not in any way add to the depression that is inseparable from sage-green walls and darkness generally. We cannot have too much cheerfulness I maintain; it is absolutely impossible to be too happy and too lively; and as our climate does not help us to be either the one or the other, we must endeavour to simulate as much sunshine as we can, by making our rooms cheerful and as sunny-looking as we have the power to do. I never go into my own rooms, or the many rooms I have helped to decorate, without feeling that, whatever else may be their faults, they certainly cannot be called gloomy. They are all bright and cheerful; and I defy anyone to be miserable long, unless, of course, some real misfortune has occurred, in one of my rooms in the green serge abode. A misfitting dress would be as dreadful a sorrow as a broken arm, a disappointment about an entertainment as serious as an illness or loss of money! Flowers again should never be forgotten, or allowed to become dead and shabby; and, above all, each room we occupy should be scrupulously clean, and without being aggressively neat should be absolutely tidy. Directly a thing becomes dirty or untidy it should be cleaned or replaced by something else. We should never overlook the soiling of the paint, a crushed antimacassar, a dirty ceiling, and, above all, we should remember that no amount of artistic knowledge and careful decoration can make up for grimy tablecloths and crooked vases, heaped-up papers and crushed chairbacks and damaged cretonnes. A room must not only be made nice, it must be kept so; and if we cannot afford good servants, who will respect our belongings, we must do the finer parts of the housework ourselves. It is no disgrace to wash fine china, and turn and fold our tablecloths and draperies; it is disgraceful to have dirty ornaments, and to be untidy and careless about our rooms.

Indeed, if any of us really want our rooms to look nice we should, no matter how good are our servants, go carefully over them ourselves the moment the housemaid’s work is done, and see that all is as we like it. Servants do not place furniture, they ram it into its place. The tablecloths are usually put on wrong side out, and, somehow or other, all seems to require the lady’s touch, which cannot be explained, but is certainly observable in any house where the mistress is untidy, and so naturally excuses untidiness in those around her.

I maintain that tidiness is quite a gift, and that she who is possessed of that admirable quality makes things go twice as far as does she who never attempts to put a thing straight, who overlooks dust and dirt, and without knowing precisely how it is managed, gets her house into endless muddle and never allows it to look nice, albeit she spends three times as much over it as does she who is gifted with tidiness and a ‘straight eye.’ Therefore, if a house is to be properly kept, the moment a handle comes off a door, replace it; the instant a thing looks in the least degree dirty, have it washed or cleaned; let any carpet be mended before it goes into a hole; have black cleaned off any ceiling the moment it comes on it; and, above all, have the china clean and straight, and never overlook a rent or a dirty mark. If a house is kept nice the expenses are gradual; if all is neglected, the day of reckoning, which must come inevitably, will be such a heavy one that it will cost more than can be afforded by anyone who is not a millionaire; and it must come, for even if the house is our own, we must leave it some time, and our successor will not revere our memory, or remember us even with kindness, when he comes after us and repairs our ravages, which need have been unimportant had we punctually spent the yearly sum for repairs, &c., which should always be set aside by every careful householder.

Every room in every house should be re-painted and papered at least every seventh year. Outside painting should be done every third year. The ceilings should be cleansed the moment they begin to look dirty; and we should never possess curtains or carpets which we cannot afford to replace somehow, or that will not readily wash and darn, and shake when they begin to show signs of having been used.

A pretty house in good order will always let, should we desire to move; while a house in bad repair, and dirty, will never find a tenant, even if the landlord is a model one, and is willing to do all he can in the matter of new decorations, for somehow the squalor and grime that greet the eye first on entering never seem forgotten, and the house is passed over again and again, because it is impossible to believe a house in such a state can ever be made either healthy or beautiful.

Before passing away from the three ordinary sitting-rooms in a house I should like just to speak of some of the new styles of decoration which have come to the fore lately, and which, I am glad to say, are all as cheerful as can be; not that the arrangements I have advocated have been relegated to that mysterious limbo dedicated to the fashions of last week. I have at last, I am delighted to be able to tell my readers, persuaded one or two of the more enterprising tradesmen to recognise the fact that a thing which was good and satisfactory last week is just as good and satisfactory this, and all the schemes of decoration I gave before are still to be had. But tastes change, and it is always well to be prepared with some new ideas, for rooms are all different, and what suits one room will not suit another.