MODERN FURNITURE

Evening Star, Issue 22953, 10 May 1938, Page 3

MODERN FURNITURE

TONES WITH TREASURED POSSESSIONS It does not necessarily follow that the setting up of a new home means the 'discarding of old and treasured furniture to make room for chromium and bakelite. To have a home that is “ modern ” simply means to have a home that is colourful and spacious and harmonious. In a setting of that nature “ antique ” furniture can look as beautiful and appropriate as the most sleekly streamlined modern pieces. Indeed, a home has more sense of contiiiuity and development when treasured possessions are used as part of the rdodern setting. This is the way one old house was altered to provide a modern background for the graciousness of its period furniture. The rooms in this_ house are a good rectangular shape, nice and compact, without being too small. Living room, dining room, and bedroom have interesting rough brick fireplaces. Originally the fireplaces were concealed under layers of ugly plaster and cement, with heavy, old-fashioned mantel shelves. These _ were _ removed to reveal the clean-cut simplicity of the plain brick, uncluttered and unspoilt by any mantel. The living room tended to be dark because of its old-fashioned small windows. So the walls were painted white, with green Venetian blinds and gay floral chintz curtains. These were hung out at each side beyond the window edges to give them a wider, more impressive appearance. In this setting the well-proportioned antique furniture gives dignity and mellow beauty to the room. There are an armchair, a comfortable high-backed sofa, a rocker, and two occasional tables in mahogany. Curtains and chairs are upholstered m a figured chintz with blue, cream, and dusty pink tones. Add a few good prints, a white bowl or two filled with fragrant old-fashioned flowers, and the charming picture is complete. In the dining room two walls are painted with apricot dulsetta. The other two are’ panelled. This room has bay windows hung with chintz curtains in a design of white lilac on a deep green background. The furniture, delicately carved, is upholstered with the ■ same fabric. On a winter night the firelight flickers from the warm brick of the fireplace over the mellow furniture, and catches on the modem copper bowl-'with its green-arid white flowen. Proof- conclusive of the happy way in which the old and the, new can be combined in modem rooms. This same blending-of-old-and-new process has occurred just as happily in the bedrooms of this little house. One is particularly charming with pale blue walls and a waxed wood floor, adorned with copper-coloured rugs. _ The bedstead is heavily carved, so is the bedside chair and the little writing desk by the window. The bedspread and the curtains are made of blue-flowered muslin with voluminous folds. By way of contrast to the old-fashioned quaintness of the room is the rugged modernity of the unadorned brick fireplace. One very pleasing part about the vise of old furniture is that if the furniture really is old, and beginning to show the signs of age in various unbecoming ways, you can still enjoy the artistry of its shape without having to endure the shabbiness of its face. Paint it white. Dulsetta, that new washable semi-flat enamel, has a dull satiny finish which is appropriate to use on period furniture. You could even bring out the old derelicts from the lumber room, patch them up, and make them fit to appear in public again with a coat of white dulsetta.