Cutting and draping

by John W. Stephenson

Fig 135

Everything in nature is formed and placed for purpose, and here is the keynote of harmonious interior arrangement. For instance, here is a drawing-room with appropriate and well-chosen pieces of furniture. How then shall we arrange them?

Imagine the room peopled with a chattering gathering of average people. This stout all-over-upholstered armchair would be occupied by one of the portly members of the group, and as these persons would by contrast appear larger and more portly in contact with those of lighter build (a chance of comparison which they studiously avoid), we will dispose the heavier pieces of furniture, if not altogether removed from the lighter and more frail, at least with intermediaries between in the shape of pieces which possess, in a measure, the characteristics of both.

Preserve the balance of the room by distributing the weight much as you would if it were a disk revolving on a central point. If there is a mantel here on the left, over there somewhere on the right would be a good place for the upright piano. If the cosey corner is in the southeast corner, then the eye instinctively seeks a corresponding piece of capacious seat room in the vicinity of the northwest corner. Continue this thought. Seat your imaginary guests in négligé conversational groups, drawing some of the pieces confidentially near to each other, and you will in a great measure have solved the knack of pleasing furniture arrangement.

To reach this consummation we said that the articles were in the first place appropriate and well chosen, and this, of course, must be the basis of the furnishing scheme.

If we might, we would plead for greater simplicity in furniture selection, less of the garishness and more of the subpurposestantiality of goods built to satisfy and to last; not necessarily the cumbersomeness of Mission, but the pleasing styles of Sheraton’s work, where strength was clothed with grace of outline and disguised with unobtrusive ornamentation. We look for a style somewhat similar in character and purpose to grow out of the present Arts and Crafts and Mission, which have appealed so strongly to ornament-satiated appetites; that grace will be added to strength, and chaste ornament to simplicity of construction.

COSEY CORNERS.

All that has been said in regard to appropriateness in general furnishings is true in a concentrated sense of the cosey corner. Applicable and suitable in almost every room of the house, it should be all that the name implies. The simple desire for its possession should be no excuse for its introduction in a location where coziness or even comfort would be an impossibility. A cosey seat should never be placed in a position where its presence would constitute a nuisance, as before a window or in a doorway. It usually appears lonesome away from the wall, and as its atmosphere is retiring it should occupy the least conspicuous position. It is not intended as a single seat, and should therefore be fairly commodious but not oppressively large. And, above all, it should be comfortable.

As to color, the cosey seat and all other large upholstered pieces should follow the dominant color tone of the room, the contrasts being introduced in the smaller pieces.