TO BLEND WITH OAK

Evening Star, Issue 19802, 28 February 1928, Page 2

TO BLEND WITH OAK

COLORFUL SETTINGS SCHEME FOR SITTING ROOM Here may be considered some settings suitable to the color characteristics of oak furniture and woodwork. When winter approaches fireside thoughts generally combine to create cosy visions of comfort in fire-lit homes, with oak settees, inglenopks, and all those delightfully old-fashioned but always satisfying accompaniments to home life: but unless we are of that small but yestlegs glass which redecorates for summer and winter we must plan a color scheme and setting that will be agreeable in all seasons, and where oak is concerned this is not difficult.

in forming a setting the graded, varied colors of the oak must Joe considered. _ Unless painted furniture is under discussion we are apt to forget that all furniture has a color, usually an emphatic one; but while we are prepared to think of furniture colorings in relation to curtains, walls, and carpets, occasionally a discordant note is introduced because the actual colon of the chair frames, tables, cupboards, and so forth has been overlooked. As oak varies from golden yellows to soft browns and rich russets, the background should make the best of those color characteristics. Walls of broken whites, primrose, pale lemon, hud, pale or warm greys, apple, and emerald green all form satisfying and appropriate backgrounds. The oak-panelled background, is naturally a charming setting for oak furniture, but it is expensive, and so many pleasing and interesting effects may be gained by plain, soil-colored walls and brightly-dmed furnishing fabrics that it seems a pity to establish a permanent background. True, the oak panelling could bo painted were it not sinful. Half-timbered walls form another background that is cool in summer, and when the curtains are drawn on a winter evening a standard of comfort suitable for the season is attained. In such a room the plaster work of the walls between the beams might be a pale cream; the curtains a ground of rich cream with a pattern of peacock blue, orange, and deep green; chair cushions, orange; loose covers for easy chairs similar to the window' draperies. For the lloor, stain a walnut shade, on which place rush mats of rich buff, and a charming tout ensemble will be presented. Pieces of decorative fabrics hung in tlie panels against half-timbered walls bring in bright color spots, enhancing the scheme. In one instance, a panel of old Italian rose and gold damask was used satisfactorily with oak furnishings. Tapestries and other fabrics can be an expensive hobby, however, but when introduced with a modicum of restraint and discrimination and limited to two or three really good panels, then a number of possibilities are opened up which greatly improve interiors. Here is a scheme set out in a moderate-sized dining room in a country residence Tho furnishings comprised new and old oak, an oak extending dining table, modern oak ladder-backed rush-seated chairs, with a slightly waxed finish, a modern sideboard of unpolished oak, simple in design, but a most practical piece of furniture, and a small mid-seventeenth century side table, with bobbin legs and a few drawers, all on a floor of polished black boarding, having a largo Oriental rug laid centrally, in which buff, mauve, and soft browns prevailed. • Walls flatted warm buff; curtains cream ground, with horiontal bands of emerald green, pale primrose, and here and there a touch of black. Behind the sideboard, w'hich lacked a back, the panel of an old rug was hung, little less than the sideboard’s width and about sft high, having simple diaper patterns in gold, yellow, and subdued emerald green on a rus-set-reddish ground. It formed a plain, effective scheme, restful and comfortable, and involved no trouble either in form of color associations. The picture may be completed by imagining a meal set with a honey-colored dinner service and amber Swedish glass. A' sitting room scheme might be: Walls, warm grey: woodwork, a deeper grey; a small double-leaf gate-leg table of old oak, two modern easy chairs, a wing chair with an oak under-frame, two or three spindle-backed rush-seated single chairs of oak or elm with padcusnion seats; fitted bookshelves on

each side of the mantelpiece painted same color as woodwork; a modern bureau in unpolished oak, with ebony drawer handles; and a convex mirror m gilded frame in maroon and old gold color as relief. Floor, close covered with rush matting, and a broad hearthrug of modern design in blue and grey; curtains, cream, •with powdered blue pattern; and the chair covers powdered blue and dove-grey. Here the fabrics supply all the color features, and all might be further enriched with a panel of rose damask, faintly patterned in gold, being hung on the wall behind the bureau. This should occupy the central position on some wall so that the color effect would be properly balanced or distributed.

These .schemes suggest a few only of the many possible color arrangements for oak furniture, or where the woodwork, too, may be oak, and also indicates the guiding principle of simplicity. The selection of color should always be planned so that the interests are kept few in number, strong in character, and in perfect harmony with each other.—John M. Fyffe, in the ‘lllustrated Carpenter and Builder.’