green material with copper hinges and fixtures, but with no looking-glass about it anywhere, and with nooks and odd places generally for china and odds-and-ends. Then on one side of the fireplace should be the dinner wagon, as illustrated, made from my ideas by Wallace. The wood can be stained green, and the tray is copper. This is removable, and allows the maid to carry out plates, china, etc. without an effort, thus very greatly simplifying the mysteries known as ‘clearing away.’ There should be about ten chairs in the ordinary dining-room and these could have stained green frames, and either orange or bright red leather seats. In this case the wall-paper should be real sealing-wax red and cream over a stained green dado, or else real bright orange over the same kind of base to the wall. If money is a great object the seats can be rush, but leather should be managed if possible, and the real orange or bright red are as novel as they are artistic and beautiful with the green furniture. A soft green carpet with very little pattern on, should be chosen, and soft green curtains. The other colour selected should be introduced at the top of the curtain in the turned-over top, which should be of printed velveteen; and if the rush-seated chairs are used, a couple of arm-chairs for the master and mistress should be procured. If there be no third room, leather arm-chairs must be bought and placed one each side of the fire; for here, alas! the husband must smoke if he indulges in that detestable habit, for unless there is a tiny conservatory, and there often is fortunately, even in quite small suburban houses, he will have no other place. But given the conservatory he can smoke there. It can always be made warm and pretty, and his smoking will be good for the plants, and that at anyrate will be some small consolation to him.
Let no one ever persuade suburban residents either to purchase their furniture in a desperate hurry, or to buy what is called modern or Flemish oak, or that most hideous material of all real pale, light oak, which can never be anything save an absolute abomination. As a rule, the modern oak is flimsy to a degree, and is also detestable in design and in manner and style. I would rather have the simplest possible deal furniture, stained brown or green according to my fancy, than either of these materials, which nothing can make bearable in the smallest degree, and I am sure anyone who has had the experience of modern oak I have had—not in my own person, I know better than that; but in the person of others—would never contemplate it for one single moment. If by the way, the hall of the house is blue, it were well to keep the dining-room to the brown and yellow scheme, taking care the draperies in the hall are Wallace’s diamond serge, and that the inside portière is in yellow printed velveteen, which can be repeated in the turned-over draperies in the curtains. Or we can have orange and cream, having brown wood and orange leather, and a real Eastern carpet with an orange ground which can be found, and therefore must be hunted for, for I have seen them now at Cardinal & Hertford’s, now at Bontor’s in New Bond Street, now at Hewetson’s, and again once more at Liberty’s. Know what you want dear readers! and have that and that only, and not the ‘next article,’ so shall you achieve artistic salvation and in no other way at all; for be sure if one shop does not possess the real thing, another will, and that patience is required in shopping, as well as faith and many other of the cardinal virtues.
But let not the very smallest householder that exists allow herself to have gas in her sitting-rooms on any account at all, neither let her condescend to keep above her head the hideous centre-piece in plaster work which is always provided for house-owners save in the more artistic (and more draughty) houses which have panelled ceilings, the plaster part of which should be coloured cream, and the panels themselves filled in with anaglypta, or else with ordinary ceiling paper judiciously arranged. The plaster rose can be removed in a moment, and replaced by a hook from which a good duplex lamp from Benson & Company in New Bond Street, should be hung, with either a pierced copper or opal glass shade, and this gives light enough for any ordinary occasion; extraordinary ones can have extra light from candles placed on the buffets or sideboard, and in sconces on the mantel and over-mantel, as shown in sketch, the duplex lamp being lighted or not as the mistress likes much or little light, or possesses, as she may possibly possess, branched silver candlesticks, or the equally beautiful Sheffield plated ones which she can place on her table on very grand occasions.
Of course, endless schemes of decoration can be evolved every year, whenever the new papers come out and new materials are produced, but there are certain things which never alter and which should always be recollected. First among them is the fact that we cannot possibly have too much real colour, and that far from demanding the timid compromises so dear to English folk, our climate and atmosphere clamour for real sealing-wax reds, deep oranges, clear yellows, and beautiful blues, and that nothing should make us temporise and have instead the smudgy terra-cottas, crude greens, ghastly lemons, and dull greys and browns which are so liberally provided for us by the usual paper-hanger. Then we must recollect that anything we buy must harmonise with what we have, while, if we have nothing—and happy is she who can begin anew and unhampered by old horrors in the fresh abode—we must buy nothing in a hurry, nothing that does not suit the special place it is meant for. We had better have one good chair than a dozen ugly ones. Also we must recollect that pictures, plants and ornaments are the hallmarks of a home, which cannot exist without them, for these things judiciously chosen and arranged, and not overdone, are after all what turn the worst suburban villa that ever was designed into an artistic abode. But then not one detail must be forgotten, neither the bell handles, the fenders, fire-irons nor finger-plates nor door handles which should be all artistic and all in one material, either beaten iron or copper, or the humbler yet satisfactory plain and untortured brass.
CHAPTER V
PARLOURS
Anything less like a parlour than the drawing-room of an ordinary suburban residence I can hardly imagine; but there is no earthly reason why it should not be turned into a semblance of one especially in those more favoured spots where the architect has artistic leanings, and where the speculative jerry-builder has not had everything his own sweet way. Here we may often come across quite delightful little picture houses, bearing the stamp of Mr Ernest Newton’s genius, and if the structure does not equal the design in merit, we can always circumvent any errors if we are clever, while the deep, charming windows and really lovely mantels over-mantels and grates provided for us, make our task of decoration a comparatively easy one from the first. Generally these houses are built with gables, and are half-timbered in a most picturesque manner, and maybe appear at first sight to be over-windowed and unduly ornate, and open vistas before us of swift ruination in the matter of blinds and curtains. But, on reflection, we discover that not only is there not one window too many, but that the very simplicity of the treatment of them as regards the curtaining as described in the last chapter, makes them far less expensive to deal with than the ordinary sash or French window, which one finds awaiting one in the dreadful houses of the older suburbs, or in those which have not yet advanced beyond the tastes of the day before yesterday. Let us therefore contemplate having a pretty room to deal with before we think of the ordinary chamber with its heavy and fearsomely-decorated cornice, its gaping grate, its ‘statuary marble’ mantelpiece, and its many other drawbacks to decorative happiness. For if we have, as I said before, the task before us is a comparatively easy one, unless of course, we are handicapped by the possession of a ghastly cheffonnier brother in fearfulness to the massive sideboard, a grand piano for a room 15 feet square, or a ‘suite’ of furniture and a round table, which said possessions really do still exist and have often to be dealt with when a move from one house to another is contemplated. If they have, there is only one word for it, and that is sell. The greater encumbrances must go for whatever they will fetch, and the owners must be contented with a much simpler style of furnishing. The cheffonnier is impossible, the round table may be relegated to the dining-room, and the old-style table there sold: and fortunately these tables are always worth a certain sum in the market: while the grand piano should be exchanged for either a cottage grand or an ordinary upright piano, and the suite of furniture effectively disguised in new cretonne frocks which cover the chairs and sofas entirely, and so hide faulty lines and construction, turning heavy, ugly encumbrances into quite charming possessions at once. These covers, however, must be made very carefully indeed, and must fit easily. The small chairs are finished off with a 3-inch frill from the seat of the chair
