HARMONY IN THE HOME

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20610, 26 December 1936, Page 18

HARMONY IN THE HOME

MODERN TENDENCIES IN FURNITURE The choice of furniture perhaps would not have been vital in Victorian days, when the average room was rather a hotch-potch, artistically 'speaking. But the scope of the furnishing market nowadays, as was abundantly evidenced at this year’s British Industries Fair, shows that the house-wife—be she never so modest in means—can exercise her taste to some purpose, says a London contributor. A-little while ago furniture designers seemed to be losing themselves in glittering orgies of glass and chromium. We had mirrored stools and dressing-tables; even fireplaces set in corrugated glass. Sweeping curves of chromium supported chairs and glasstopped tables. Wrought iron, found to be an effective foil, was also brought in for this purpose. If we had required furniture for an ice palace we could scarcely have found any more appropriate. We noted, in many cases, certain beauty of effect, but the limitations of such chaste grandeur were equally obvious. We do not all wish to live in surroundings 'where a film star would delight to dance! So as normal beings, we welcome the homelier aspects of wood which the designers whose work was shown at the Fair are now employing artistically and to such practical ends. They preserve that simplicity of outline and absence of "dust-traps” which we have learnt to appreciate; and we are more thankful than we can say for the ingenuity with which they meet the exacting demands of our modern houses where space is worth its expanse in gold.

To-day we see box ottomans fitted with bookshelves and cupboards; all with bookshelves and cupboards; all manner of settees which turn into beds; and innocent-looking sideboards which, once you get rourid them in the right way, reveal tables on castored legs. These disappear quite as obligingly when not in use. Such novelties quickly become necessities in our contracted flats and cottage dwellings. Practically the only decoration is achieved by the contrasting of different woods. Suites of weathered sycamore, for instance, may have beds and wardrobes standing on walnut bases; dark kingwood is frequently used for base and for corner motifs in tables and cabinets in suites of red-gold Australian maple. We are all familiar with strip handles of darker tone than the main woodwork, and the ornamental groupings of stripes of the contrasting wood. When wall treatment and upholstery are in harmony with the wood the full symphony of comfort is produced as it should be—colour and proportion welded with pacifying effect. And if environment plays as important a part In our happiness as the psychologist would have us believe, then in a house so furnished domestic harmony must prevail!