Twentieth Century Culture and Deportment / Or the Lady and Gentleman at Home and Abroad; Containing Rules of Etiquette for All Occasions, Including Calls; Invitations; Parties; Weddings; Receptions; Dinners and Teas; Etiquette of the Street; Public Places, Etc., Etc. Forming a Complete Guide to Self-Culture; the Art of Dressing Well; Conversation; Courtship; Etiquette for Children; Letter-Writing; Artistic Home and Interior Decorations, Etc.

by Maud C. Cooke

Screens can be used to protect from drafts of air, by day or night, to keep the sun from an exposed spot on the carpet, to shade the light from weary eyes, to temporarily close archways that have no doors, and to conceal a door that is not often used. They will divide a large room into two small ones when a sudden influx of company arrives, or even close in a corner for the same hospitable emergency. They make delightful nooks in sitting-rooms for the little folks’ playhouse, or they may screen off, from the morning caller, a temporary sewing-room in the back parlor, and in sleeping-rooms, occupied by more than one person, a cosy dressing-room may be made by their use.

Draperies.

The new swinging portieres that have appeared have a handsome swinging crane fastened to the wall near the ceiling, upon which a portiere or curtain is suspended. This can then be swung back against the wall or swung out to make a cozy corner or to shut off one portion of a room from another. These swinging portieres can in many cases be made to take the place of screens and often fit with great advantage where a fixed portiere of the old sort could not be used.

The handsome cranes are of course more or less expensive, but a home-made substitute will answer the purpose very well. It is not exactly home-made, however, for the services of a blacksmith may have to be called in to bend the three-eighths inch iron rod into shape for use. The ends are bent to fit into screw eyes or other sockets fastened to the wall, upon which this improvised crane can be swung. The portiere is suspended from the iron rod by rings.

Denim is one of the best of all fabrics for a portiere in rooms constantly used. It may be washed out and will look quite as well as new. If you want a variety put one entire width in right side out, and split another and join to the first section, putting the side pieces wrong side out. Sew the seams, then fell them and featherstitch the outside of the seams in colored linen. Then with a teacup or saucer draw some circles, intersecting or lapping at one edge. Work these with linen in short stitches and make eccentric lines or spider-web lines from the central design. The edges may be hemmed or featherstitched or done in button-hole and cut out in scallops. It is better to have the edge of the facing instead of making a turned-in hem.

Then denim, as a floor covering, wears far better than low-cost matting and never becomes disagreeably faded; for, being made for hard usage, it but takes a quieter tone when other blues would surely fade into unpleasant, soiled-looking hues.

Some Useful Bits of Furniture.

A settee table of oak has an adjustable top, which can be turned over by the removal of two pegs, making a high back to the bench, whose deep seat is utilized as a household linen closet. These tables are in great demand where the saving of space is an object and come in various sizes. They can be purchased without the top and used as a window seat. One in a pretty studio of a woman artist in New York was most artistically treated. It was painted a dull green. The back and the lid of the seat were upholstered in an effective gold colored tapestry drawn over a padding of hair and held down by gimp and gilt nails, making a most artistic seat or table, as its use for either was required. Another one was stained green, and on the back and lid of the seat was used natural toned burlap, with stenciled griffins in dark brown as a decoration.

These tables may be treated in various ways to suit their surroundings. It is suggested in The Decorator and Furnisher that one stained the natural oak and upholstered in green rep, turcoman, corduroy, burlap or denim would be most attractive, or for green, substitute brown in the same materials and put on with dull brass nails, making an effective seat for a hall.

Another, painted white and enameled, would be charming in a blue and white dining-room. Upholster in dark blue denim with white nails, and fill with a number of pretty pillows in various designs of blue and white, and one of vivid scarlet to give a warm touch, which is needed in these coldly decorated rooms.