Better Bedrooms.

Progress, Volume XVI, Issue 10, 1 June 1921, Page 223

Better Bedrooms.

Speaking broadly, the general effect of a bedroom should be light, soft and restful. If a patterned wallpaper be decided upon, the greatest care should be taken to select one that is not wearying to the eye. Plain papers in good tints are always pleasing, but the advantage which a patterned one possesses is that it does not show the wear and use of daily life so quickly.

The question of colouring depends entirely upon the aspect of the room and the amount of light it receives. The colder colours, blues, greens, greys and mauves, should be handled very sparingly unless the room gets more than its share of sunlight; and even then the pale shades of those colours (except grey) should be avoided, because they can never hold their own, decoratively speaking, against bright sunshine; in fact, pale blue and pale green serve no useful purpose whatever from a decorator’s point of view.

Grey is in a somewhat different category. Being a neutral shade, it can be used for walls in rooms, even those with a cold aspect, provided the necessary warmth of colouring is supplied by curtains, carpets, bedspread and other items, though possibly cream-coloured walls would look better in the majority of such cases. Creamy-white paint is, I think, the most pleasant for the woodwork of any bedroom.

The floor covering sometimes presents rather a puzzling problem, many ultra-hygienists going so far as to say that bedroom floors ought to consist of washable linoleum, with only a rug beside the bed as a concession to luxury. So Spartan a suggestion finds no favour in my eyes, but certainly a fitted carpet is a mistake, not only from the hygienic standpoint, but also because it cannot easily be taken up for cleaning, or turned round to equalise the wear.

Cover the floor with plain linoleum by all means, or, better still, with cork carpet, which is softer and warmer to the tread, but have a square of carpet or plenty of rugs as well for the sake of comfort. The advantages of laying linoleum or cork carpet all over the floor are obvious. No dust can work up between the floor-boards into the underside of the carpet, no under-felt is necessary, and the room is not made uninhabitable when the carpet is taken up to be beaten or cleaned.

The carpet should strike the deepest note in the colour scheme, whether it be in harmony with or in contrast to the walls. Good Oriental designs in soft colours always look well, or you can use a Wilton or Axminster carpet with some simple geometrical pattern, though possibly, if the walls are covered with a patterned paper, a plain pile carpet would be the best choice of all for a bedroom.

With regard to the furniture of our bedrooms, we are still somewhat slaves to the conventional “suite. ’ A dressing table and a wardrobe are obvious necessities, but, to my mind, there is no reason why they should match each other so meticulously, with a washstand en suite. The lastnamed piece of furniture is gradually becoming obsolete, though some folk seem to preserve it as a fetish not to be eliminated because it “matches” the wardrobe and dressing table, even though it is never used. Bedroom chinaware, too, presents greater scope for the display of bad taste in design and form than almost any other domestic crockery, which is an additional reason why many people have banished from their homes the clumsy washstand, with its drudgery of carrying and emptying.

The ideal bedroom, of course, has a bath-dress-ing room attached, but failing the ideal the existing bathroom is very commonly made to serve for the ablutions of the family. A fitted lavatory basin in the bedroom, with hot and cold water, is a very great convenience, but I am one of those who question its provision from the hygienic point of view, and also I dislike its appearance. The best treatment of the kind I have seen in a bedroom took the form of a large cupboard built across the angle formed by two outside walls. This had a full length mirror on the door, and its appearance was that of an ordinary hanging cupboard, but when opened the interior proved to be tiled and fitted up with porcelain basin, nickel-plated taps, plate-glass shelves, mirrors and all the appointments of a luxurious little toilet cabinet. Best of all, it was ventilated by a small window.

Some people use their bedrooms as a sort of extra sittingroom, and, in flats and small houses especially, it is a very convenient plan for the mistress of the house to have her desk and some comfortable chairs in the room, so as to be able to read, write, or rest there undisturbed. With the paraphernalia of washing out of sight, there is nothing in the rest of the necessary bedroom furniture to preclude the use of the room as a sittingroom.

By far the most important piece of furniture, of course, is the bed, concerning which there was a well-illustrated article in Our Homes and Gardens for June last, to which readers would do well to refer. But even the most beautiful bedstead will prove but an elegant piece of camouflage if the spring and the bedding are not well chosen. The craze for cheapness which spread over the country some years ago is responsible for much discomfort in the form of inferior beds, the so-called “combination” type being a particularly unpleasant variety. In case that description does not convey its own meaning, I would explain that a combina-

tion bed is one in which the wire spring is part and parcel of the bedstead itself.

The best quality woven-wire springs have a certain amount of resiliency, but their great fault lies in the fact that the only direction in which they can accommodate themselves to the weight of the body is by sagging towards the middle, like a hammock, and the sleeper thereby is not resting in a proper attitude. Our health and well-being depend so largely upon good sleep that I feel sure many “light sleepers” would hud themselves materially benefited by the simple expedient of purchasing a new bed of the spiral spring type, of which there are one or two excellent varieties on the market.

Turning next to bed draperies, these, if any, should carry out the general scheme, and a white bedspread should be absolutely taboo. An expanse of dead whiteness, even on a single bed, makes a glaring note in any room. So let the bedspread harmonise with the room, not oppose it.

The electric lights should be conveniently placed in relation to the principal pieces of furniture, and a bedside lamp nicely shaded, or a pendant, with pendant switch, should shed a comfortable glow over those lazy hours of reading in bed.

With regard to the dressing table, the conventional thing with swing mirror attached is no longer our only choice. We have begun to realise the possibilities of antique furniture that was designed for quite other purposes. I myself enjoy the roomy top of an old spinet upon which stands a reproduction of an antique swing mirror. Tne smaller-sized Sheraton style bow-front or serpentine front sideboards (or their modern prototypes) make charming dressing tables; so also do the fine old chests of drawers. They should have sheets of plate-glass made to fit the top, and be used without toilet covers. Delightful little swing mirrors are to be found in plenty.

Individual requirements and the already selected dressing table will dictate the style and size of the wardrobe, which can be made to accord in colour and polish with the other pieces of furniture we may possess.

Coming to the question of curtains, chair covers and other fabrics, these will necessarily be chosen to suit the style of the room, but in every case it would be best to have them of a washable material —plain if the walls are patterned, or vice versa. Cretonne or printed linen curtains need lining, otherwise they look “thin” against the light and present an ugly appearance to the window. There is no necessity for any curtain to come more than, say, 1 ft. below the level of the window sills. If the windows are overlooked and it is necessary to screen them in some way, the result can be achieved very simply by hanging a plain net curtain from a small rod at the top of the window, close against the glass. The modern cream or coloured hlet net serves the purpose admirably and is beautifully clear, of all colours the golden yellow giving the best effect of light.

The old unhygienic and unbeautiful days of heavy curtains .trailing on the floor, or looped up with ropes as thick as one’s arm, have departed, and the long Nottingham lace curtains (a pair to each window) are following them’ reluctantly, but surely, to the limbo of forgotten things. Finally, it should be possible to render a bedroom comfortably dark, even in the day-time, and if roller blinds are fitted these could be of dark green linen or holland. Or, if preferred, the curtains could be lined with a dark shade of the predominating colour in the room, and for this purpose nothing is more suitable than one of the new fadeless fabrics.—M. RITCHIE in Architecture.