DEALING WITH SMALL ROOMS

Evening Star, Issue 21632, 30 January 1934, Page 2

DEALING WITH SMALL ROOMS

FURNISHING SCHEMES WHICH INCREASE SIZE Tn a street not far from the Square, wo found our ideal house (says the ‘Mirror’). The moment wo saw it, with its little green door, its big windows, and its winding, narrow stairs, we decided it was our house, nnd.it was only after we had signed the lease that wo discovered how very, very' small the looms were. Fortunately we were not burdened with any “ left over” furniture from another and a larger house, as so many people arev and so we furnished with one very important objective in view: that of making each room look much larger than it really was. 'flu's is how wo did it. The chief things to be considered were lighting, colour of walls, and the curtains. Any large pattern fu the latter tended to swamp the room entirely and yet an absolutely plain Colour over so large a space as the window (it stretched from the coiling to the floor) made the rest of tbe room look out of proportion. Kventually we chose a beige and pale bine cotton-bro-cade. Next, wo took a door between the sitting room and the dining room off its binges altogether, thus making the two rooms almost like one. This aspect we emphasised by .carpeting both rooms alike with a beige Wilton carpet, laid right up to the wall and through the door. The walls of both rooms were distempered light beige. The lighting arrangement was particularly important in our scheme of uniformity between the two rooms. We removed the ugly centre hanging lights and chose instead four wall brackets (two for each room) of gilt and blue Italian design, with screen shades of dull gold parchment. These' were placed so that the lights from each room were visible from the other. Then it came to the question of furniture. We avoided the large, longseated armchair which always seems to swamp any room, and instead we bought a grandmother “ wing chair and a tub-shaped armchair. A sofa or chesterfield was, of course, out of the question, but we had a low stool which made a very comfortable seat by the fire, and could be pushed into a corner when not in use. The table was naturally the chief point of emphasis in the dining room, Wo found a charming old mahogany table, oblong, hut with very rounded corners. We had some difficulty in finding a small sideboard, but eventu.r all v we discovered a three-foot narrow table with two deep drawers and turned legs. This was probably meant originally for a side table, hut it served our purpose admirably. The cupboard for our china and glass was another problem. Valuable floor space would have

been taken up by the usual type, so we bought a corner hanging cupboard, which left room underneath for a chair or a wine-cooler in which to keep tbe bottles. The bedroom, over tbe sitting room, was distempered a light cream, with pale green paint, and instead of two beds (which - always seem to dominate it room quite disproportionately) we bad two divans with small head-boards. A wardrobe was dispensed with and a hanging cupboard was built in a space by one side of the fireplace ; in the opposite recess we built a low cupboard, tbe top of which was used ns a washstand.