SMALL HOUSE FURNISHING

Evening Star, Issue 20028, 20 November 1928, Page 2

SMALL HOUSE FURNISHING

CHOICE OF DESIGN Tho interior finishing and furnishing of a small house is a matter .that concerns many people to-day. Small houses, generally speaking, are the vogue, and it is just that knack of knowing what to do in a small space that so greatly assists the young homebuilders.

In the first place the inside walls of a small house should not be finished in white plaster, or if they are they should bo papered as soon as the plaster is dry. It will be found that a room finished with neutral tinted walls will need less furnishing, and will occasion less anxiety about the colours of its contents than if the walls are starkly white.

That neutral background will serve to give everything its proper value. Colours that might even have been supposed to clash will resolve themselves into relative places in the general scheme.

A bowl of flowers that before looked quite unimportant and scraggy will glow in flaunting beauty, and take up and accentuate other colour notes in the room. Coloured calcimines cannot give the effect that a paper —even a cheap ono—affords. Wood panelling tends to make rooms look smaller, and it is not suitable in a small house, unless, perhaps for the hall. Then with furniture. If you have some good period furniture, you are very fortunate, and you should be able to make your house look quite charming. Rut do not be obsessed with the period mania. Some mixed pieces will not spoil your room, and when once you are given over heart and soul to a period, it means that all your decorations, even your ornaments and picture frames should conform.

This is cramping and sometimes dull in ultimate result. It was rather the effect of a very symmetrical “ repeat ” pattern, which causes you to count and count until you become maddened and distracted. With tho super-period furnishing scheme tho brain becomes feverish in looking for matches, in accounting and measuring and sorting. . . . Subconsciously, the history complex is kept working overtime, until the apathetic senses are jagged and jaded. In a large house there is more room for period orgies, and relief can be given to a Jacobean dining room by means of a Louis XV. drawing room, a George V. breakfast room, and a Stanley Bruce study. In choosing furniture lor tho_ small house avoid “ cornery ” places, if possible. Rounded edges take up less room, and they aro not so sharp to knock against either. Hardwood floors are best, of course, but bo wary of too many small rugs that can be tripped over. Two large rugs are better than three small ones. In a small house where the living room is in constant use—the real dwelling room—it is' best to have cretonnes or good linens as coverings for the couch and chairs. Chenille and tapestry become shabby verysoon, and do not look as “'homey” and cheerful as chintzes. It depends on tho character of tho room, of course. Floral cretonnes are quite out of place in a formal style of room Jacobean, or even Adam and Hep pelwaite look foolish -with cretonnes. Arras, or good poplin could be used but tapestry is most suited.

Mission styles or William Morris furnishings, or farmhouse style, give the setting for cretonnes. But if your suite is figured or floral, have plain-toned cushions, with a few black ones included. In a small house several small tables are preferred to one large one. It give-' the inmates a better chance to segro gate when they wish, and it offers something of the idea of space and privacy that are the advantage of the largo house. A couple of collapsible card tables, or table “ nests,” are helpful and space-saving. Built-in furniture wherever possible, is, of course, admirable in the small house, which is another reason why strictly period furniture is unwise. Most modern houses now have a builtin sideboard, servery hatch, and any amount of wardrobes, pantries, and cupboards. These are the excellent fixings that make a small house often preferable and more comfortable than a large one. See to it when building that your wal’s are thick enough to be pretty well sound proof. Privacy is difficult enough in a small house, but if the walls are well filled so as to be almost sound proof, it will be possible for a non to study in a room next to the speaker.