Those Occasional Tables Their Proper Use In A Home

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 97, 27 April 1938, Page 14

Those Occasional Tables Their Proper Use In A Home

(By a New York Correspondent.) rpHE home in which I have to plan a zig-zag course, in the manner of a harried mountain goat, around many types of tippy tables, is the home I avoid. It may be the householder is glad I avoid it because the thought of upsetting some

of the tables might bring that sad event upon me. I avoid that home purposely because, in such an event, my natural free and easy manner might be open to momentary criticism.

But it may be that I should enjoy tip-toeing across a rushing brook, pursuing the course prescribed for me by projecting rocks. However, indoors 1 seem to prefer mentally to follow a straight line between the door of the room and a certain piece of furniture, and then move gracefully toward it. I don’t like to feel that I am expected to hurdle a magazine carrier, detour a protruding side table, and escape a footstool, in order to get where I want to be. No doubt, there are others who feel as I do about this subject and in their absence and behalf I say, “Less tables and more space, please.” Uses and Abuses. It is evident that the casual table, properly placed, has a dignified use in every well-furnished home. The argument is not with the dignity of placement, but with thought of the dignity of each one in the family, from the husband and the children to the grandmother. In homes where books and

games are enjoyed, a side table here and there is an adjunct to easy living, since it affords a proper place for the small reading lamp, the box of chess men, the discarded book or paper, and the frequent pencil, fan, handkerchief, beverage glass or c'coa cup.

But it should never be allowed to become a dumping ground for odds and ends. As such it makes itself undesirable in more v/ays than one. When such tables, littered or not, become so

numerous as to be unpleasant for a guest, then they are profuse. When, in addition to this, he is caused indecision as to which table to rest his buffet plate on, they are too profuse. In clubs, fraternity houses, hotels and some large homes, interior decorators use lamps and tables very wisely and effectively, and thus sparsely. At strategic points they mserve space while serving as many people as possible. One long table and two side tables, with one large lamp, may serve *wo lounges and four chairs with no apparent sense of crowding and no suggestion of a need to hurdle. This is the height of economy. But with modem furniture much the same economy is achieved, as wide open spaces play a very important part in the stage properly set to display .lie angular and longitudinal furniture in vogue today. Without the space, especially the space constituting the vista through which furniture is seen, the beauty of line and proportion is lost.

As much care should be given the home featuring maple furniture, even though the need is for more informal groupings. A helter-skelter arrangement of chairs, side tables, hooked rugs and lamps is not a successful informal grouping. It is more apt to look as though the moving men had just left. It never promotes peace and harmony. Care should be exercised so that graceful chair lines, shining table tops, hooked mats and wood colourings are brought out harmoniously, instead o* subdued by excess, hit or miss, end tables. The ideal home is a complete whole, never a collection of odds and ends. When pieces are added, it should be because they are needed to complete a group in a room. When the pi9ture is complete, an end table added, detracts from its beauty an i restfulness. The graceful curves and dilicate carvings of Victorian pieces add much to homes distinguished by the unlaboured poise of this era. Here, too, many side tables would distract and detract thought lending nothing of harmony or beauty to the room. The mid-Victorians walked with stately dignity and flowing skirts which, according to etiquette, could not become entangled with tippy tables, and householders respected the sensitivity of friends and laid no snares (or very few!). Mos of us prefer the home with too little furnishings, as more desirable than the cluttered, stuffy home that presents stumbling blocks in the torm of too much furniture. The over-advertised end table, tea waggon and milking stool have had their day. They have their place, but that place isn’t everywhere. The considerate use of such necessities shows kindness, finesse, understanding.