In furnishing the Hostess Houses at the Camps throughout the country, wonderful effects were produced almost entirely with color and paint. The men craved color. They were weary of khaki, tans and dust color, and their joy in and appreciation of the Hostess Houses was a delight to see. Expensive fabrics were out of the question. How, then, to get color? By paint! Perfectly ordinary kitchen chairs and tables in the cafeterias were painted soft light cheerful greens. Body color coats of brilliant warm orange and deep royal blue were given to a very simple type of wicker chair in the huge living rooms. The effect of these masses of color offset by the khaki of the men was gay and cheerful beyond words. Large paper shades of orange color shaded the lamps. The rooms glowed with a joy and welcome that none of the men failed to appreciate.
Make your homes as gay and cheerful as you possibly can, not “jumpy” with hard, unlovely color, but as full of warm soft tones as you can get them, remembering always that Home must be a place of peace and rest as well as joy.
We feel like echoing the sentiment of the old Gloucester fisherman who gave his schooner a new coat of paint in the spring, and, gazing with pride and admiration at his work, remarked, “Ain’t it wonderful what a lick o’ paint’ll do!”
The Small House
IN these servantless days, the bungalow type of house grows more and more popular. It is compact, convenient; it only asks for a simple type of furniture. A mixture of good willow, painted or left in its natural color, in the body, and with the braided edge painted or stained; some old mahogany or walnut pieces, if you are fortunate enough to own them, mix in well, or good simple reproductions. By walnut furniture I do not mean the hideous black walnut “Eastlake” types. These, with their scrolls and marble tops and glooms, are, I hope, forever relegated to oblivion.
I shudder now in remembrance of a set of black walnut furniture in my grandmother’s bedroom, particularly an enormous bureau, with its marble top, huge great mirror supported by carved columns that wiggled upward, and topped over all by massive carved grapes. How I gazed in awe while a terrible stillness always filled me as I planted my small person in front of it!
And oh! the terrible “best rooms” of the past! I remember a friend telling me that in her father’s house the “best room” door was never left open. That closed door, at the foot of the stairs—how it filled her with absolute horror! And she had a trick of throwing herself around the newel post with a tremendous swing—with enough “way” to land her up two or three steps of the stairs if she was going up, or ’way round, well past that awful door, if she was coming down stairs. Imagine the effect on that little mind. And the shrinking terror with which she grew up. The awful something behind those doors! What was it? What an opportunity for an inhibition! The “best room,” thank Fate, has forever left us, and in its place we are putting the living room where the family draws magnetically together. Wonderful if it has an open fire, and most bungalows now have. The open fire is the soul of a room. We gravitate toward it instinctively. We group our furniture round it. We draw up chairs, stools, anything to get within its cheerful glow.
Arrange your furniture with some meaning, in groups if it is a large room. There is the group around the fire; the group around the tea table; the group around the reading table, with its glow of light, centred to draw the family together in peace and concord.
Above all things avoid “small junk.” The sins that are committed in the name of “bric-à-brac” can never be atoned for. There is no Hades big enough! And the amount of money that is spent is appalling. If you can’t have a few fine bits, preferably antique, there are many modern Chinese porcelains that are lively and full of color. Don’t be afraid of empty spaces—books, flowers, a work box, all have meaning and purpose. There never was a drawing room too fine for a lady’s work box; and what a sense of cozy human sympathy it always has—the chair beside a low table with a work box, a vase of flowers, a book. That brings us to another point. Have low tables—as many as your room will hold—without crowding, of course, and instead of cheap, utterly meaningless junk—cheap though it may have cost much actual money—have flowers, or green branches of laurel leaves or a small growing plant; and a book or magazine on a low table placed beside the chair where your family or guest may take comfort and pleasure.
To go back to our starting point—the bungalow. Arrange any rooms on the first floor so that they do not clash, not necessarily using the same tones but as far as possible letting the colors in one room lead into another or carry on a suggestion from one to another. In other words, keep your vista so that the effect, while not being monotonous, avoids the chopped-up restless result we have when we break up our space by too many colors. Have your house restful and keep away from the temptation to put too many things about. Rather do as the Japanese—keep a lot in the closet and change them around. Have a large table with a large lamp whose shade permits a wide radius of light, so that several persons may sit within its circle. Put books and magazines and papers on the table or in little racks, for your bungalow living room is an informal room. Parchment lamp-shades are lovely in a bungalow and can be made plain with bands of color or with a design, depending on the material used for cushions, etc. Have one or two large divans with loose cushions, depending on the size of your living room. Over-stuffed pieces look much smarter and most intimate if upholstered in chintzes. If your chintz is delicate in color and design, have fitted slip covers well made with corded seams and pleated valances. Very tailored these must be—not at all the loose baggy things we put on as dust-covers in summer. The finest drawing rooms in England have these fitted slip covers, and the delicate chintzes can thus be easily cleansed.