The House in Good Taste Part 3

We had a delightful time decorating the furniture with blue and mauve lines, and we painted parasols and birds and flowers on chair backs and drawer-k.n.o.bs and so forth. The large rug was of pinky-mauve-gray, and the coverings of the day bed and chairs were of a mauve and gray striped stuff, the stripes so small that they had the effect of being threads of color. There were no pictures, of course, but there was a long mirror above the chest of drawers, and another over the mantel. The lighting-fixtures, candlesticks and appliques, were of carved and painted wood, blue-green with shades of thin mauve silk over rose.

Among the most enchanting of the new papers are the black and white ones, fantastic Chinese designs and startling Austrian patterns. Black and white is always a tempting combination to the decorator, and now that Josef Hoffman, the great Austrian decorator, has been working in black and white for a number of years, the more venturesome decorators of France, and England and America have begun to follow his lead, and are using black and white, and black and color, with amazing effect. We have black papers patterned in color, and black velvet carpets, and white coated papers sprinkled with huge black polka dots, and all manner of unusual things. It goes without saying that much of this fad is freakish, but there is also much that is good enough and refreshing enough to last. One can imagine nothing fresher than a black and white scheme in a bedroom, with a saving neutrality of gray or some dull tone for rugs, and a brilliant bit of color in porcelain. There is no hint of the mournful in the decorator's combination of black and white: rather, there is a nave quality suggestive of smartness in a gown, or chic in a woman. A white walled room with white woodwork and a black and white tiled floor; a black lacquer bed and chest of drawers and chair; gla.s.s curtains of white muslin and inside ones of black and white Hoffman chintz; a splash of warm orange-red in an oval rug at the bedside, if it be winter, or a cool green one in summer--doesn't this tempt you?

I once saw a little serving-maid wearing a calico gown, black crosses on a white ground, and I was so enchanted with the cool crispness of it that I had a glazed wall paper made in the same design. I have used it in bedrooms, and in bathrooms, always with admirable effect. One can imagine a girl making a Pierrot and Pierrette room for herself, given whitewashed walls, white woodwork, and white painted furniture. An ordinary white cotton printed with large black polka dots would make delightful curtains, chair-cushions, and so forth. The rug might be woven of black and white rags, or might be one of those woven from the old homespun coverlet patterns.

The landscape papers that were so popular in the New England and Southern houses three generations ago were very wonderful when they were used in hallways, with graceful stairs and white woodwork, but they were distressing when used in living-rooms. It is all very well to cover the walls of your hall with a hand-painted paper, or a landscape, or a foliage paper, because you get only an impressionistic idea of a hall--you don't loiter there. But papers of large design are out of place in rooms where pictures and books are used. If there is anything more dreadful than a busy "parlor" paper, with scrolls that tantalize or flowers that demand to be counted, I have yet to encounter it.

Remember, above all things that your walls must be beautiful in themselves. They must be plain and quiet, ready to receive sincere things, but quite good enough to get along without pictures if necessary. A wall that is broken into beautiful s.p.a.ces and covered with a soft creamy paint, or paper, or gra.s.scloth, is good enough for any room. It may be broken with lighting fixtures, and it is finished.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SCHEME OF THIS ROOM GREW FROM THE JARS ON THE MANTEL]

VI

THE EFFECTIVE USE OF COLOR

What a joyous thing is color! How influenced we all are by it, even if we are unconscious of how our sense of restfulness has been brought about. Certain colors are antagonistic to each of us, and I think we should try to learn just what colors are most sympathetic to our own individual emotions, and then make the best of them.

If you are inclined to a hasty temper, for instance, you should not live in a room in which the prevailing note is red. On the other hand, a timid, delicate nature could often gain courage and poise by living in surroundings of rich red tones, the tones of the old Italian damasks in which the primitive colors of the Middle Ages have been handed down to us. No half shades, no blending of tender tones are needed in an age of iron nerves. People worked hard, and they got downright blues and reds and greens--primitive colors, all. Nowadays, we must consider the effect of color on our nerves, our eyes, our moods, everything.

Love of color is an emotional matter, just as much as love of music. The strongest, the most intense, feeling I have about decoration is my love of color. I have felt as intimate a satisfaction at St. Mark's at twilight as I ever felt at any opera, though I love music.

Color! The very word would suggest warm and agreeable arrangement of tones, a pleasing and encouraging atmosphere which is full of life. We say that one woman is "so full of color," when she is alert and happy and vividly alive. We say another woman is "colorless," because she is bleak and chilling and unfriendly. We demand that certain music shall be full of color, and we always seek color in the pages of our favorite books. One poet has color and to spare, another is cynical and hard and--gray. We think and criticize from the standpoint of an appreciation of color, although often we have not that appreciation.

There is all the difference in the world between the person who appreciates color and the person who "likes colors." The child, playing with his broken toys and bits of gay china and gla.s.s, the American Indian with his gorgeous blankets and baskets and beads--all these primitive minds enjoy the combination of vivid tones, but they have no more feeling for color than a blind man. The appreciation of color is a subtle and intellectual quality.

Sparrow, the Englishman who has written so many books on housefurnishing, says: "Colors are like musical notes and chords, while color is a pleasing result of their artistic use in a combined way. So colors are means to an end, while color is the end itself. The first are tools, while the other is a distinctive harmony in art composed of many lines and shades."

We are aware that some people are "color-blind," but we do not take the trouble to ascertain whether the majority of people see colors crudely.

I suppose there are as many color-blind people as there are people who have a deep feeling for color, and the great ma.s.ses of people in between, while they know colors one from another, have no appreciation of hue. Just as surely, there are some people who cannot tell one tune from another and some people who have a deep and pa.s.sionate feeling for music, while the rest--the great majority of people--can follow a tune and sing a hymn, but they can go no deeper into music than that.

Surely, each of you must know your own color-sense. You know whether you get results, don't you? I have never believed that there is a woman so blind that she cannot tell good from bad effects, even though she may not be able to tell _why_ one room is good and another bad. It is as simple as the problem of the well-gowned woman and the dowdy one. The dowdy woman doesn't realize the degree of her own dowdiness, but she _knows_ that her neighbor is well-gowned, and she envies her with a vague and pathetic envy.

If, then, you are not sure that you appreciate color, if you feel that you, like your children, like the green rug with the red roses because it is "so cheerful," you may be sure that you should let color-problems alone, and furnish your house in neutral tones, depending on book-bindings and flowers and open fires and the necessary small furnishings for your color. Then, with an excellent background of soft quiet tones, you can venture a little way at a time, trying a bit of color here for a few days, and asking yourself if you honestly like it, and then trying another color--a jar or a bowl or a length of fabric--somewhere else, and trying that out. You will soon find that your joy in your home is growing, and that you have a source of happiness within yourself that you had not suspected. I believe that good taste can be developed in any woman, just as surely as good manners are possible to anyone. And good taste is as necessary as good manners.

We may take our first lessons in color from Nature, on whose storehouse we can draw limitlessly. Nature, when she plans a wondrous splash of color, prepares a proper background for it. She gives us color plans for all the needs we can conceive. White and gray clouds on a blue sky--what more could she use in such a composition? A bit of gray green moss upon a black rock, a field of yellow dandelions, a pink and white spike of hollyhocks, an orange-colored b.u.t.terfly poised on a stalk of larkspur--what color-plans are these!

[Ill.u.s.tration: A LOUIS SEIZE BEDROOM IN ROSE AND BLUE AND CREAM]

I think that the first consideration after you have settled your building-site should be to place your house so that its windows may frame Nature's own pictures. With windows facing north and south, where all the fluctuating and wayward charm of the season unrolls before your eyes, your windows become the finest pictures that you can have. When this has been arranged, it is time to consider the color-scheme for the interior of the house, the colors that shall be in harmony with the window-framed vistas, the colors that shall be backgrounds for the intimate personal furnishings of your daily life. You must think of your walls as backgrounds for the colors you wish to bring into your rooms.

And by colors I do not mean merely the primary colors, red and blue and yellow, or the secondary colors, green and orange and violet, I mean the white s.p.a.ces, the black shadows, the gray halftones, the suave creams, that give you the _feeling_ of color.

How often we get a more definite idea of brilliant color from a white-walled room, with dark and severe furniture and no ornaments, no actual color save the blue sky framed by the windows and the flood of sunshine that glorifies everything, than from a room that has a dozen fine colors, carefully brought together, in its furnishings!

We must decide our wall colors by the aspect of our rooms. Rooms facing south may be very light gray, cream, or even white, but northern rooms should be rich in color, and should suggest warmth and just a little mystery. Some of you have seen the Sala di Cambio at Perugia. Do you remember how dark it seems when one enters, and how gradually the wonderful coloring glows out from the gloom and one is comforted and soothed into a sort of dreamland of pure joy, in the intimate satisfaction of it all? It is unsurpa.s.sable for sheer decorative charm, I think.

For south rooms blues and grays and cool greens and all the dainty gay colors are charming. Do you remember the song Edna May used to sing in "The Belle of New York"? I am not sure of quoting correctly, but the refrain was: "Follow the Light!" I have so often had it in mind when I've been planning my color schemes--"Follow the Light!" But light colors for sunshine, remember, and dark ones for shadow.

For north rooms I am strongly inclined to the use of paneling in our native American woods, that are so rich in effect, but alas, so little used. I hope our architects will soon realize what delightful and inexpensive rooms can be made of pine and cherry, chestnut and cypress, and the beautiful California redwood. I know of a library paneled with cypress. The beamed ceiling, the paneled walls, the built-in shelves, the ample chairs and long tables are all of the soft brown cypress.

Here, if anywhere, you would think a monotony of brown wood would be obvious, but think of the thousands of books with brilliant bindings!

Think of the green branches of trees seen through the cas.e.m.e.nt windows!

Think of the huge, red-brick fireplace, with its logs blazing in orange and yellow and vermillion flame! Think of the distinction of a copper bowl of yellow flowers on the long brown table! Can't you see that this cypress room is simply glowing with color?

I wish that I might be able to show all you young married girls who are working out your home-schemes just how to work out the color of a room.

Suppose you are given some rare and lovely jar, or a wee rug, or a rare old print, or even a quaint old chair from long ago, and build a room around it. I have some such point of interest in every room I build, and I think that is why some people like my rooms--they feel, without quite knowing why, that I have loved them while making them. Now there is a little sitting-room and bedroom combined in a certain New York house that I worked out from a pair of Chinese jars. They were the oddest things, of a sort of blue-green and mauve and mulberry, with flecks of black, on a cream porcelain ground.

First I found a wee Oriental rug that repeated the colors of the jugs.

This was to go before the hearth. Then I worked out the sh.e.l.l of the room: the woodwork white, the walls bluish green, the plain carpet a soft green. I designed the furniture and had it made by a skilful carpenter, for I could find none that would harmonize with the room.

The day bed which is forty-two inches wide, is built like a wide roomy sofa. One would never suspect it of being a plain bed. Still it makes no pretensions to anything else, for it has the best of springs and the most comfortable of mattresses, and a dozen soft pillows. The bed is of wood and is painted a soft green, with a dark-green line running all around, and little painted festoons of flowers in decoration. The mattress and springs are covered with a most delightful mauve chintz, on which birds and flowers are patterned. There are several easy chairs cushioned with this chintz, and the window hangings are also of it. The chest of drawers is painted in the same manner. There are gla.s.s k.n.o.bs on the drawers, and a sheet of plate gla.s.s covers the top of it. An old painting hangs above it.

The open bookshelves are perfectly plain in construction. They are painted the same bluish-green, and the only decoration is the line of dark green about half an inch from the edge. Any woman who is skilful with her brush could decorate furniture of this kind, and I daresay many women could build it.

There is another bedroom in this house, a room in red and blue. "Red and blue"--you shudder. I know it! But _such_ red and _such_ blue!

Will you believe me when I a.s.sure you that this room is called cool and restful-looking by everyone who sees it? The walls are painted plain cream. The woodwork is white. The perfectly plain carpet rug is of a dull red that is the color of an old-fashioned rose--you know the roses that become lavender when they fade? The mantel is of Siena marble, and over it there is an old mirror with an upper panel painted in colors after the manner of some of those delightful old rooms found in France about the time of Louis XVI. If you have one very good picture and will use it in this way, inset over the mantel with a mirror below it, you will need no other pictures in your room.

[Ill.u.s.tration: By permission of the b.u.t.terick Publishing Co.

THE WRITING CORNER OF A CHINTZ BEDROOM]

The chintz used in this room is patterned in the rose red of the carpet and a dull cool blue, on a white ground. This chintz is used on the graceful sofa, the several chairs and the bed, which are ivory in tone.

The hangings of the bed are lined with taffetas of rose red. The bedcover is of the same silk, and the inner curtains at the window are lined with it. The small table at the head of the bed, the kidney table beside the sofa, and the small cabinets near the mantel, are of mahogany. There is a mahogany writing-table placed at right angles to the windows.

From this rose and blue bedroom you enter a little dressing-room that is also full of color. Here are the same cream walls, the dull red carpet, the old blue silk shades on lamps and candles, but the chintz is different: the ground is black, and gray parrots and paroquets swing in blue-green festoons of leaves and branches. The dressing-table is placed in front of the window, so that you can see yourself for better or for worse. There is a three-fold mirror of black and gold lacquer, and a Chinese cabinet of the same lacquer in the corner. The low seat before the dressing-table is covered with the chintz. A few costume prints hang on the wall. You can imagine how impossible it would be to be ill-tempered in such a cheerful place.

VII

OF DOORS, AND WINDOWS, AND CHINTZ

What a sense of intimacy, of security, encompa.s.ses one when ushered into a living room in which the door opens and _closes_! Who that has read Henry James's remarkable article on the vistas dear to the American hostess, our portiere-hung s.p.a.ces, guiltless of doors and open to every draft, can fail to feel how much better our conversation might be were we not forever conscious that between our guests and the greedy ears of our servants there is nothing but a curtain! All that curtains ever were used for in the Eighteenth Century was as a means of shutting out drafts in large rooms inadequately heated by wood fires.

How often do we see ma.s.ses of draperies looped back and arranged with elaborate dust-catching ta.s.sels and fringes that mean nothing. These curtains do not even draw! I am sure that a good, well-designed door with a simple box-lock and hinges would be much less costly than velvet hangings. A door is not an ugly object, to be concealed for very shame, but a fine architectural detail of great value. Consider the French and Italian doors with their architraves. How fine they are, how imposing, how honest, and how well they compose!

Of course, if your house has been built with open archways, you will need heavy curtains for them, but there are curtains _and_ curtains. If you need portieres at all, you need them to cut off one room from another, and so they should hang in straight folds. They should be just what they pretend to be--honest curtains with a duty to fulfil. For the simple house they may be made of velvet or velveteen in some neutral tone that is in harmony with the rugs and furnishings of the rooms that are to be divided. They should be double, usually, and a faded gilt gimp may be used as an outline or as a binding. There are also excellent fabrics reproducing old brocades and even old tapestries, but it is well to be careful about using these fabrics. There are machine-made "tapestries" of foliage designs in soft greens and tans and browns on a dark blue ground that are very pleasing. Many of these stuffs copy in color and design the verdure tapestries, and some of them have fine blues and greens suggestive of Gobelin. These stuffs are very wide and comparatively inexpensive. I thoroughly advise a stuff of this kind, but I heartily condemn the imitations of the old tapestries that are covered with large figures and intricate designs. These old tapestries are as distinguished for their colors, their textures, and their very crudities as for their supreme beauty of coloring. It would be foolish to imitate them.

As for windows and their curtains--I could write a book about them! A window is such a gay, animate thing. By day it should be full of sunshine, and if it frames a view worth seeing, the view should be a part of it. By night the window should be hidden by soft curtains that have been drawn to the side during the sunshiny hours.

In most houses there is somewhere a group of windows that calls for an especial kind of curtain. If these windows look out over a pleasant garden, or upon a vista of fields and trees, or even upon a striking sky-line of housetops, you will be wise to use a thin, sheer gla.s.s curtain through which you can look out, but which protects you from the gaze of pa.s.sers-by. If your group of windows is so placed that there is no danger of people pa.s.sing and looking in, then a short sash curtain of swiss muslin is all that you require, with inside curtains of some heavier fabric--chintz or linen or silk--that can be drawn at night.

If you are building a new house I strongly advise you to have at least one room with a group of deep windows, made up of small panes of leaded gla.s.s, and a broad window-seat built beneath them. There is something so pleasant and mellow in leaded gla.s.s, particularly when the gla.s.s itself has an uneven, colorful quality. When windows are treated thus architecturally they need no gla.s.s curtains. They need only side curtains of some deep-toned fabric.