BUILDING AND HOMES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 123, 22 February 1928, Page 17

BUILDING AND HOMES

BY

JACK PLANE)

FURNITURE OF TO-DAY MERITS OF MODERN WORK UTILITY AND BEAUTY The table is the one piece of furniture in any room that decides if the room shall be of ponderous dignity, graceful elegance, practical comfort, or efficient service. For comfort, sociability, and possibilities for attractive table decorations, you cannot beat the round table. The oval table of the Queen Anne, Chippendale, and Sheraton type I would place second. Gate-leg tables are beautiful. Some arc comfortable, and some —as everyone who is acquainted with them kiows—are the very acme of discomfort. Square and oblong tables arc faithful servers in the cause of both beauty and utility. • Round, oval, oblong, or square, each have their merits, and your room will be an important determining factor, whe-. ther it shall be a “thing” of curves or angles. N.B.—lnspect carefully the position and placing of the legs and running boards of any table at which you are proposing to dine a number of guests. Do not forget this tiny point. It will make all the difference between comlortable and uncomfortable seating. From a woman’s point of view, the greatest boon in the fashion of tables that has arisen for many generations past is the “nest of tables.” These little servitors give sound practical service. There are all kinds and types on the market. Some arc hideous in design and inadequate in service. They look like a piece of cheese, rough cut, and hewn at random. Others are perfect in design and workmanship. Oval sets in beautifully figured walnut, about 2ft. high, 1-l-ft. in length, and Ift. in width, firm in stance, and solid in substance, are a joy to possess. They fit and run into each other like an efficiently fitted drawer, and render to the tea-time guest unparalleled service.

Drawing room tables must never be an individual question for every homeloving mistress will draw around her in this particular room table evidence of her own inherent taste. One word I would like to say about the modern drawing room tables. They combine with equal honours, beauty, and service. There is not the slightest excuse to-day to possess a table of any kind—not even in the kitchen—that is only serviceable. Practically allied to beauty is the hallmark of the modern table.

Where space is at a premium, there is an excellent and attractive design most suitable for drawing-room use. It is hexagonal in shape, and lias side sections for the reception of books, pet ornaments, papers, etc. It can be produced in almost any kind of wood. It is new, modern, solid, beautiful, and very practical.

There are nests of drawers with delightful drop handles and cabriole legs, whose top forms an admirable surface for a tea table or for old brass or silver candlesticks that carry some lovely shade of long and graceful candles. Miniature gate-leg tables in every conceivable kind of wood are gems of craftsmanship, and admirably suited for drawing-room wear. Most bedrooms—save for the dressingtable—are sadly lacking in adequate table accommodation. There is a great opening for double-duty tables. Save in old houses, there never seems to be any room to spare, and table furniture is mostly banished from the bedroom. By the aid of modern double-duty furniture, the bedroom can have its table that can be transformed instantaneously into a bureau, or where needed a table chest of drawers that will become at will a washstand.

Every year some new type of bedtable arises, but few there are that bring adequate comfort to the forced bed, resident. The old-fashioned type that' moves up and down and turns on a standard is hard to beat, for it

leaves the patient comparatively free, where many of the modern ones that stand on the bed cramp and confine.

In the majority of cases the tables specially built for the bedside are too high for the bed. When choosing your bedside tables, this is a point to bear in mind. Certain modern kitchen tables are a triumph from a labour-saving, and a space-giving point of view. They not. only give gool table surface accommodation ; they have invisible leaves that draw out when required, cupboards at both ends, a large one in the centre, besides excellent drawer accommodation.

I would advise all who are equipping a home to install one of these new modern kitchen tables. They are a splendid investment, and excellent conservers of space and energy. You do not need to be reminded of the excellent craftsmanship of old oak tables of the Jacobean, Stuart, and Cromwellian eras, nor of the walnut and mahogany beauties of the Queen Anne, Chippendale, Heppelwhite, and Sheraton periods. You all know something of these. What is essential to-day is for the majority to becomq, acquainted with the excellence of modern funliture.

"Cheap” furniture is produced on a large scale, and it serves its purpose; but it is not economical in the long run. Good modern furniture need fear no comparison with furniture of by-gone periods. It has a “period” all its own. It continues to improve in design .and construction, and for value received it is of a reasonable and fair price. The coming into use of plywood in its present form has made possible the improved design of modern furniture.-

There seems to be among many people quite an erroneous idea about “veneered” furniture. They have the impression that anything that is “veneered” and not “solid” is an inferior article. All down the ages the finest pieces of furniture have not been “solid.” The beautiful walnut pieces of flic Queen Anne period, the rich malioganv of Chippendale, were not "solid,” thev were “veneered.” f

Afodern plywood gives exceeding strength to the furniture of to-day. Tt is also unequalled as a base for beautiful veneers, and it brings within the reach of the majority the possibility of purchasing good sound and really beautiful furniture.

Tables of unsurpassed beauty of design are built up in plvwood and made resplendent by magnificently figured veneers. The plvwood foundation is so stroll" that the tables last for generations. The modern designs are unique, beautiful, and practical. There is no getting away from the fact that in the matter of tables alone the nresent-day artist and craftsman are producing creations that will be cherished bv posterity. If you desire to become the possessor of a table that is beautiful, unique, practical, and efficient, you will find your ideal among the many excellent and splendid designs that are being produced by our own modern craftsmen. . . . —Veronica Vaughan, in the “Ideal Home.”

It is a very simple and inexpensive matter to make an anti-splash for your tap. Obtain a piece of glass tubing of wide bore about two inches long, and a piece of rubber tube of nearly the same size but on the larger side. It is better if this is made of pure rubber rather than vulcanised, as ,'t lasts longer, but if there is any difficulty, a bit of garden hose will answer the purpose. Then get hold of a scrap of fine copper gauze, or if that is not available, the gauze out of a tea-strainer will do. Cut out two tiny discs of the gauze exactly the size of the outer diameter of the glass tube, then slip the glass about half an inch into the rubber and wire it on tightly. Now place the little gauze circles inside the rubber and press them down on to the edge of the glass tube. The next step is to rub soap or oil on the tip of the tap and force the rubber over it until the edge of the tap nearly touches the discs of gauze, thus holding them.in position. When the rubber is firmly wired on to the tap the anti-splash is ready for use. One made on the lines indicated was in use many months without needing any attention.

STRAY NOTES

ART CRAFTS Never were handicrafts and handmade articles generally more popular than they are to-day, and they offer a distinctive field of real beauty and variety. Handicraft gifts hate the further advantage that they can equally well be home-made or bought. Most women nowadays adopt some sort of handicraft—the making of jewellery, raffia work, or weaving—-as a hobby and find it most useful in supplying all the gifts they send out at Christmas. Those who have no .time or inclination for this manual dexterity, but possess artistic friends, can choose from among a huge assortment of beautiful things in many of the handicraft shops. The friend who is furnishing or redecorating will welcome one or two hand-thrown pots or vases. There is an originality of design, colouring and glaze about hand-made pottery which is extremely individual. Only a very few pieces should be placed in a room, to have the attention they merit, so for gift purposes choose a really beautiful specimen. Barbola, consisting of modelled and coloured decorations applied to wood, glass and other surfaces, is enjoying huge popularity and is by no means a difficult craft to carry out at home. Serviette rings, candlesticks, circular mirrors, powder bowls, book-ends and paper-baskets, after first being enamelled or gilded, all lend themselves to the work, which is done with barbola paste modelled and coloured to represent various fruits and flowers. Many guy and elaborate specimens can be bought ready decorated. They range from a small ash-tray to small items of furniture, such as three-sided dressing-table mirrors. Brightly painted fretwork articles have had a great vogue of late, as dexterous women who once believed that the fretsaw was entirely a masculine toy arc now' turning out very dainty and vivid work in the form of calendars, mascots, pictures, and little toilet or table accessories, such as menu-holders. OLD LACQUER

There are three products for which the Chinese are pre-eminently famous: silks, pottery, and lacquered furniture. In bygone days Christian monks made perilous excursions into the heart of the celestial kingdom to learn the secrets of silk weaving and to procure silkworms, smuggling their booty across the frontier at the risk of their lives; and for nearly 300 years Chinese pottery and porcelain have been the inspiration and despair of Occidental connoisseurs; while their carved ornaments in ivory, crystal, and jade are equalled only by those of Japan. As for lacquer work, it seems to enjoy an enthusiastic and perennial vogue throughout the world. Introduced into England by way of Holland in the reign of William and Mary in the late seventeenth century, the fashion for the “Chinese taste” reached enormous dimensions by the middle of the eighteenth century, and although after that the craze to some extent subsided, a steady demand both for genuine Oriental lacquer and for European imitations has persisted to this day. In the last few years lacquered furniture has enjoyed a considerable vogue. The charm of antique European lacquer often lies in the child-like ingenuousness with which it attempts to imitate the Oriental style. Its very failure in this endeavour makes it quaintly attractive, for its queer mixture of Eastern and Western atmosphere and feeling gives it an unique position among decorative styles. The method followed by the Chinaman in brush lacquer is vastly more complicated than that employed in Europe, and, above all, it is for carved and fretted lacquer that the Chinese are so widely famous. The finest examples of Chinese lacquer, or, indeed, of any lacquer, were produced in the eighteenth century during the reign of Kieii-Lung (17351795), an Emperor of the Ming dynasty, whose marvellous throne in red, yellow and green carved lacquer, from the imperial hunting palace at Nan-hai-tz.e, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Loudon. In an article in the “National Review” Mr. Hamilton Fyfe, claims that building societies afford an investment that is free from the disadvantages attached to Stock Exchange investments, and “give a great many the chance to go through life without financial anxiety and with comfort in their later years.” He thinks they are the best substitute available for a contributory old age pension scheme for jieople in the middle station of life, which he regards as likely to come before long. Air. Fyfe does not discuss the question whether the charges made to borrowers are unduly high, but lie points out that the societies, by assisting people who wish to build houses, encourage independence and stimulate employment.