Nursery Schemes

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 154, 27 March 1937, Page IV (Supplement)

Nursery Schemes

New Furnishings For Autumn With the coming of autumn is a favourite time for reorganising the nurseries of Mayfair, says an English writer. Almost more popular than painted furniture, which does not long survive the kicks and scratches ol healthy and energetic small children, is the variety of light-coloured wooden furniture, polished or unpolished, and harmonising with any colour scheme. Birch, spruce, beech, oak. pine, and' hardwood are all used to make nursery furniture in tones ranging from creamy yellow when polished to off-white when unpolished. Round tables are the for nursery meals. Hie Duchess of Kent, Lady Hambleden, the Hon. Lady Davidson, and Lady Castlereagh are four mothers who agree on this point. Often they are provided with linoleum tops, winch are easily wiped free of paint or food stains. Ensemble furnishing is as important in the modern nursery as in the draw-ing-room. Coal scuttles are made in the same wood as the furniture, and there are miniature armchairs with rush-bottomed seats , for small children. Another type of nursery table for the smaller family has book shelves at either end, which should prove useful for teaching children to be tidy. Medicine chests for Nannie in the same wood are now provided, with a shelf for the books on nursery diet, clothing, and upbringing that are a feature of infant welfare in the Mayfair nuisery world.

In many' fashionable flats, when space does not permit of a number of chairs, benches are the solution for the refectory type of dining-table. Benches are now being used in the nursery because mothers maintain that children are thereby taught to sit up straight and not to 101 l or slouch. They take up little, room after meals, and can be pushed up against the walls and are made of unpolished oak in a pleasant porridge shade. So Mayfair mothers are returning to medieval methods of upbringing. Alternatives to off-white tones -of modern wood in the nursery include chromium and cane furniture. The former is very inexpensive and the top of the nursery table, writing desk for fin older child, or a stool, can be cellulosed to any colour scheme. For a small girl’s bedroom cream cellulosed steel tubing makes the’bed chassis to match the cream cellulosed furniture. See-saws are also made iu cellulosed steel for the day nursery. While too much miniature furniture is bound to prove a luxury in the modern small family of two or three children, there are some details for the nursery that are now made specially to fit their small owners. One is a wash-stand in unpolished oak, arranged like a square table, with wooden containers that are removable for sponge and soap and a hole for a basin and jug. of a height that permits the toddler to wash himself or herself with ease. Another is a toyehest on wheels to facilitate clearing up the nursery floor.