The general woodwork of the doors, windows, and skirtings should be painted in some plain colour to harmonise or contrast with the wall decoration, and the whole varnished; woodwork finished in this way can be easily washed or cleaned, and the extra expense of varnishing will be saved in a few years. The bedstead should be of brass or iron, the furniture of light wood, varnished or polished; and, now that good painted tiles can be obtained at small expense, they may be used in washing-stands with good effect, or the wall above may be lined entirely with them to a height of 2 or 3 ft.
As regards the general floor surfaces, let them be entirely painted, or stained and varnished, so as to present non-absorbent and easily cleaned surfaces, or better still, finished with parquet flooring, which is almost entirely non-absorbing, and which can be cleaned by a damp cloth every day; with rugs or simple homespun carpets laid down beside the bed, and elsewhere, where required, so as to be easily taken up and shaken every day without trouble. There is one objection to square carpets in a bedroom, and that is, if you are lightly shod, or, as is often the case, barefoot, the polished floor is very unpleasantly cold; and also, as it is not every one who can indulge in the luxury of a bedroom fire, a wholly carpeted floor tends to keep out draughts and make the room generally warmer.
If you do away with all resting-places for dirt and dust on the tops of wardrobes and hanging closets, and behind and under chests of drawers and other heavy furniture, there will naturally be much less labour required in cleaning and purifying the rooms. Heavy curtains should be avoided, indeed it is difficult to see why curtains are needed at all in bedrooms, if the window-blinds be of some dark-toned stuff sufficient to hide light, and to keep out the glare of the morning sun.
Nurseries.—In all the upper rooms of a house, which may be used as nurseries, Edis would, where practicable, construct semi-octagonal projecting bays, so as to provide for the greatest possible light and sunshine; and if this cannot be arranged, the windows should be as widely splayed inside as possible, and no light or sunshine shut out by heavy curtains or venetian blinds; and here, too, as in the best rooms of the house, should be thick plate, instead of the miserably thin glass, which is considered sufficient in the upper portions of so many houses; the thick glass gives truer light, is less penetrated by sound, and helps to retain the warmth of the room after the fires have gone out, and the house is left to cool in the long night hours.
The walls of the nurseries should be hung with some bright and cheerful pattern paper, varnished for health’s sake, while the upper portion should be distempered; the upper space or frieze should be divided from the general wall surface by a small deal painted picture rail, but the ceilings and frieze should be cleaned off and re-distempered every autumn, as nothing tends so much to sweeten the rooms as this annual cleaning off and re-doing of the ceilings, which naturally are more impregnated with the impurities of the shut-up rooms than any other portion of them. Paint or varnished papers are always more healthy than distemper, as they can be readily washed, and do not absorb and hold dirt and other impurities.
The walls of the night nurseries should be hung with a soft, general toned paper, varnished, so as to be sponged every week, or distempered all over, so as to be re-done at small cost at frequent intervals, for it is essential in the ordinary low-pitched upper rooms of town houses, generally devoted to nurseries, to wash out as often as possible, the peculiar stuffy bedroom atmosphere, which must be absorbed in the walls and ceilings of all low rooms. The tone of colouring or pattern on the walls should above all not be spotty or glaring, with strongly defined forms presenting nightmare effects to drive away sleep, or disturb our little ones in the hours of feverish unrest or sickness. But in the rooms they live in there is no reason why the “writing on the walls” should not be the earliest teaching of all that is beautiful in nature, art, or science, and by good illustrations of fairy lore and natural forms incline the thoughts of our children to all that is graceful and beautiful in nature or imaginative faculties.
Bells and Calls
Bells and Calls.—No house can now be considered complete without it is fitted with call-tubes or bells, especially the latter. Call-tubes are more general in places of business, but they might often replace bells in a house with advantage to all concerned. The wires for bells are carried in tubes and boxes concealed by the finishing of the walls and skirting. These tubes are often of tinned iron or zinc, but they ought to be either of brass or strong galvanised iron. Zinc cannot be depended on: in some places it will moulder away; if not soldered, it opens, and the wires work into the joinings of the tube, which stops their movement. The old-fashioned system of bells is being largely supplanted by electric bells.
Electric Bells.—An ordinary electric bell is merely a vibrating contact breaker carrying a small hammer on its spring, which hammer strikes a bell placed within its reach as long as the vibration of the spring continues. The necessary apparatus comprises a battery to supply the force, wires to conduct it, circuit-closers to apply it, and bells to give it expression.