WE all know the kind of narrow house with the black hole of a middle room to be found all over New York City. How people endured the gloom of it all is a mystery. I once was asked to do over a house of this kind. The walls and woodwork were tinted a dark brown. The middle room was practically useless. My client said rather pathetically: “Can’t this be made a place where the men would like to linger and smoke?”—it adjoined the dining room. “They now run through it as fast as they can to the library above, which is cheerful.” I didn’t wonder. Even a piano and a “canned music” cabinet couldn’t hold them.
I immediately had all the woodwork scraped and panelled and painted a soft old ivory. I found an English chintz with large flowers in the gayest of rose and blue and mauve tones on a cream background. It was some time before I could convince my client that the chintz was what she wanted—but I have since had the satisfaction of having her tell me she loves it more each year. I knew she would!
The curtains and portieres between the dark middle room and the dining room—the darkest spot in the room—were made of this beautiful chintz, so full of color and life. A large arm-chair was covered with it and placed where you couldn’t resist it as you came out of the dining room; a low table with a lamp was placed beside the chair, the only light in the room previously having come from remote wall fixtures. Small low tables for coffee cups also had lamps. Several pieces of furniture were covered in the rose red—a wonderful shade—in the chintz, and warm old rose rugs deep in tone were used. The room was transformed. And my client laughingly said she couldn’t get the men away from it. The moment they began to use it the charm began to work; the evening papers with their various items of interest placed on a table as a lure made a topic for conversation and the ice was broken. Conversations begun at the table were easily continued over the coffee cups and cigarettes. The room still had a distinct dignity and formality as well, but it had the charm that only color can give.
We applied the same treatment to the library on the second floor, where golden oak trim and green walls flaunted their ugliness. The oak was rubbed down, stained and waxed, hand rubbed to make a soft velvety English oak finish. A putty colored wall was used, a wonderful tone where subdued yellow and green blended marvellously; beautiful Chinese rugs of exquisite golden brown backgrounds—a rare color in Chinese rugs—all made the setting, the frame for all else that was used in the room. Book-cases built awkwardly out into the room were removed and placed in a heaven-sent niche which we acquired by ripping out two closets full of junk that were placed between the library and bedroom adjoining. These niches were large enough to hold a desk on one side and a table with a reading light on the other, the walls being lined with shelves and filled with books. The space made by removing the shelves from the room allowed us to place very comfortably in just the right light a baby grand piano.
This room had two great points of architectural background: a very well proportioned semi-circular window seat commanding a heavenly view of the river and Palisades, with casement windows of small leaded panes and a deep window seat; and a large fireplace framed in the most villainous shade of green glazed tile and a wildly ornate “over-mantel” with endless jig-saw wreaths and mirrors galore in panels. The ornamentation was most carefully planed off—the over-mantel and its mirrors entirely removed, leaving a very nicely proportioned low mantel, absolutely simple. The hearth was re-tiled in old English clay tiles and wrought iron fire-irons and andirons supplanted the modern brass of hideous and much ornamented design. The same furniture recovered was unrecognizable in its new background.
The only light came from the large bay window which took up practically the entire width of the room. Only very thin curtains of grenadine covered the windows, with a hanging at either end of the arch to give color and soften the frame. It is marvellous, once our eyes are opened to the possibilities of the changes we can bring about in our surroundings. And if only people can be made to realize the extraordinary reaction on their lives—in their spirits, in their very health itself. Wasn’t it Whistler who said, after a visit to Walt Whitman: “The room was furnished by a large earthen jar filled with golden-rod and sunshine”?
It requires thought and judgment and it results in a gain to us of perception and observation. You can gain some sort of a result out of almost any collection of furniture if you will place it with a view to producing a livable arrangement, just as, on the other hand, you can “queer” very beautiful things by a poor arrangement.
Bear in mind that the home your children will remember is the home they are growing up in now, today, and its effect is now reacting on all their future lives. I honestly believe that much illness would be spared if we tried to make our homes more happy in color and furnishings. It is not possible to be gloomy in a room full of sunshine and color and life.
You can get a gloomy result with very beautiful furniture. Men decorators (I am sorry to have to say it) generally do get this result. Their interiors are handsome, expensive, but heavy, and never by any chance intimate or charming. You can make a home with a red geranium, a muslin curtained window, a few unpainted chairs, a freshly scrubbed floor and a clear kerosene lamp. It’s all in the touch; and once we are awakened to it, and begin to see that, we can do wonders.
A last word is about kitchens—in New England, last summer, I was taken with great pride by my hostess into her kitchen, which was a revelation. The floor was tiled in dark red, the walls were lined with shelves on which stood all the pots and jars (containing ingredients of every kind) with bands of old blue decorations. A large table, with a double frame going up horizontally from the sides, made two racks, on which to hang the spotless shining utensils. Gingham curtains with valances hung at the grouped windows on either side, as the room occupied the width of the wing drawn out to build this model kitchen. Flowers in pots stood in a row on the window sill. No wonder we were served delicious food. The cook’s face and that of her assistant shone like their pots. Work in such surroundings became a pleasant task. And my last plea is to make your home happy by the right furnishings and your lives will be filled with the joy of them. It isn’t a question of money alone. Much can be done with little. It is just giving it the right touch.