The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Art of Interior Decoration
Title: The Art of Interior Decoration
Author: Grace Wood
Emily Burbank
Release date: December 8, 2004 [eBook #14298]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Stan Goodman, Karen Dalrymple, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team
THE ART OF INTERIOR DECORATION
PLATE I
There is something unusually exquisite about this composition. You will discover at a glance perfect balance, repose—line, everywhere, yet with it infinite grace and a winning charm. One can imagine a tea tray brought in, a table placed and those two attractive chairs drawn together so that my lady and a friend may chat over the tea cups.
The mirror is an Italian Louis XVI.
The sconces, table and chairs, French.
The vases, Italian, all antiques.
A becoming mellow light comes through the shade of deep cream Italian parchment paper with Louis XVI decorations.
It should be said that the vases are Italian medicine jars—literally that. They were once used by the Italian chemists, for their drugs, and some are of astonishing workmanship and have great intrinsic value, as well as the added value of age and uniqueness.
The colour scheme is as attractive as the lines. The walls are grey, curtains of green and grey, antique taffeta being used, while the chairs have green silk on their seats and the table is of green and faded gold. The green used is a wonderfully beautiful shade.
THE ART OF INTERIOR
DECORATION
BY
GRACE WOOD
AND
EMILY BURBANK
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1917
TO
A.M.M.
At the age of eighty, an inspiration to all who meet her, because she is the embodiment of what this book stands for; namely, fidelity to the principles of Classic Art and watchfulness for the vital new note struck in the cause of the Beautiful.
FOREWORD
If you would have your rooms interesting as well as beautiful, make them say something, give them a spinal column by keeping all ornamentation subservient to line.
Before you buy anything, try to imagine how you want each room to look when completed; get the picture well in your mind, as a painter would; think out the main features, for the details all depend upon these and will quickly suggest themselves. This is, in the long run, the quickest and the most economical method of furnishing.
There is a theory that no room can be created all at once, that it must grow gradually. In a sense this is a fact, so far as it refers to the amateur. The professional is always occupied with creating and recreating rooms and can instantly summon to mind complete schemes of decoration. The amateur can also learn to mentally furnish rooms. It is a fascinating pastime when one gets the knack of it.
Beautiful things can be obtained anywhere and for the minimum price, if one has a feeling for line and colour, or for either. If the lover of the beautiful was not born with this art instinct, it may be quickly acquired. A decorator creates or rearranges one room; the owner does the next, alone, or with assistance, and in a season or two has spread his or her own wings and worked out legitimate schemes, teeming with individuality. One observes, is pleased with results and asks oneself why. This is the birth of Good Taste. Next, one experiments, makes mistakes, rights them, masters a period, outgrows or wearies of it, and takes up another.
Progress is rapid and certain in this fascinating amusement,—study—call it what you will, if a few of the laws underlying all successful interior decoration are kept in mind.
These are:
HARMONY
in line and colour scheme;
SIMPLICITY
in decoration and number of objects in room, which is to be dictated by usefulness of said objects; and insistence upon
SPACES
which, like rests in music, have as much value as the objects dispersed about the room.
Treat your rooms like "still life," see to it that each group, such as a table, sofa, and one or two chairs make a "composition," suggesting comfort as well as beauty. Never have an isolated chair, unless it is placed against the wall, as part of the decorative scheme.
In preparing this book the chief aim has been clearness and brevity, the slogan of our day!
We give a broad outline of the historical periods in furnishing, with a view to quick reference work.
The thirty-two illustrations will be analysed for the practical instruction of the reader who may want to furnish a house and is in search of definite ideas as to lines of furniture, colour schemes for upholstery and hangings, and the placing of furniture and ornaments in such a way as to make the composition of rooms appear harmonious from the artist's point of view.
The index will render possible a quick reference to illustrations and explanatory text, so that the book may be a guide for those ambitious to try their hand at the art of interior decoration.
The manner of presentation is consciously didactic, the authors believing that this is the simplest method by which such a book can offer clear, terse suggestions. They have aimed at keeping "near to the bone of fact" and when the brief statements of the fundamental laws of interior decoration give way to narrative, it is with the hope of opening up vistas of personal application to embryo collectors or students of periods.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I HOW TO REARRANGE A ROOM
Method of procedure.—Inherited eyesores.—Line.—Colour.—Treatment of small rooms and suites.—Old ceilings.—Old floors.—To paint brass bedsteads.—Hangings.—Owning two or three antique pieces of furniture, how proceed.—Appropriateness to setting.—How to give your home a personal quality.
CHAPTER II HOW TO CREATE A ROOM
Mere comfort.—Period rooms.—Starting a collection of antique furniture.—Reproductions.—Painted furniture.—Order of procedure in creating a room.—How to decide upon colour scheme.—Study values.—Period ballroom.—A distinguished room.—Each room a stage "set."—Background.—Flowers as decoration.—Placing ornaments.—Tapestry.—Tendency to antique tempered by vivid Bakst colours.
CHAPTER III HOW TO DETERMINE CHARACTER OF HANGINGS AND FURNITURE-COVERING FOR A GIVEN ROOM
Silk, velvet, corduroy, rep, leather, use of antique silks, chintz.—When and how used.
CHAPTER IV THE STORY OF TEXTILES
Materials woven by hand and machine, embroidered, or the combination of the two known as Tapestry.—Painted tapestry.—Art fostered by the Church.—Decorated walls and ceilings, 13th century, England.
CHAPTER V CANDLESTICKS, LAMPS, FIXTURES FOR GAS AND ELECTRICITY, AND SHADES
Fixtures, as well as mantelpiece, must follow architect's scheme.—Plan wall space for furniture.—Shades for lights.—Important as to line and colour.
CHAPTER VI WINDOW SHADES AND AWNINGS
Coloured gauze sash-curtains.—Window shades of glazed linen, with design in colours.—Striped canvas awnings.
CHAPTER VII TREATMENT OF PICTURES AND PICTURE FRAMES
Selecting pictures.—Pictures as pure decoration.—"Staring" a picture.—Restraint necessary in hanging pictures.—Hanging miniatures.
CHAPTER VIII TREATMENT OF PIANO CASES
Where interest centres abound piano.—Where piano is part of ensemble.
CHAPTER IX TREATMENT OF DINING-ROOM BUFFETS AND DRESSING-TABLES
Articles placed upon them.
CHAPTER X TREATMENT OF WORK TABLES, BIRD CAGES, DOG BASKETS, AND FISH GLOBES
Value as colour notes.
CHAPTER XI TREATMENT OF FIREPLACES
Proportions, tiles, andirons, grates.
CHAPTER XII TREATMENT OF BATHROOMS
A man's bathroom.—A woman's bathroom.—Bathroom fixtures.—Bathroom glassware.
CHAPTER XIII PERIOD ROOMS
Chiselling of metals.—Ormoulu.—Chippendale.—Colonial.—Victorian.—The art of furniture making.—How to hang a mirror.—Appropriate furniture.—A home must have human quality, a personal note.—Mrs. John L. Gardner's Italian Palace in Boston.—The study of colour schemes.—Tapestries.—A narrow hall.
CHAPTER XIV PERIODS IN FURNITURE
The story of the evolution of periods.— Assyria.—Egypt.—Greece.—Rome.—France. —England.—America.—Epoch-making styles.
CHAPTER XV CONTINUATION OF PERIODS IN FURNITURE
Greece.—Rome.—Byzantium.—Dark Ages.—Middle Ages.—Gothic.—Moorish.—Spanish.—Anglo-Saxon.—Cæsar's Table.—Charlemagne's Chair.—Venice.
CHAPTER XVI THE GOTHIC PERIOD
Interior decoration of Feudal Castle.—Tapestry.—Hallmarks of Gothic oak carving.
CHAPTER XVII THE RENAISSANCE
Italy.—The Medici.—Great architects, painters, designers, and workers in metals.—Marvellous pottery.—Furniture inlaying.—Hallmarks of Renaissance.—Oak carving.—Metal work.—Renaissance in Germany and Spain.
CHAPTER XVIII FRENCH FURNITURE
Renaissance of classic period.—Francis I, Henry II, and the Louis.—Architecture, mural decoration, tapestry, furniture, wrought metals, ormoulu, silks, velvets, porcelains.
CHAPTER XIX THE PERIODS OF THE THREE LOUIS
How to distinguish them.—Louis XIV.—Louis XV.—Louis XVI.—Outline.—Decoration.—Colouring.—Mural Decoration.—Tapestry.
CHAPTER XX CHARTS SHOWING HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF FURNITURE
French and English.
CHAPTER XXI THE MAHOGANY PERIOD
Chippendale.—Heppelwhite.—Sheraton.—The Adam Brothers.—Characteristics of these and the preceding English periods; Gothic, Elizabethan, Jacobean, William and Mary, Queen Anne.—William Morris.—Pre-Raphaelites.
CHAPTER XXIII THE COLONIAL PERIOD
Furniture.—Landscape paper.—The story of the evolution of wall decoration.
CHAPTER XXII THE REVIVAL OF DIRECTOIRE AND EMPIRE FURNITURE
Shown in modern painted furniture.
CHAPTER XXIV THE VICTORIAN PERIOD
Architecture and interior decoration become unrelated.—Machine-made furniture.—Victorian cross-stitch, beadwork, wax and linen flowers.—Bristol glass.—Value to-day as notes of variety.
CHAPTER XXV PAINTED FURNITURE
Including "mission" furniture.—Treatment of an unplastered cottage.—Furniture, colour-scheme.
CHAPTER XXVI TREATMENT OF AN INEXPENSIVE BEDROOM
Factory furniture.—Chintz.—The cheapest mirrors.—Floors.—Walls.—Pictures.—Treatment of old floors.
CHAPTER XXVII TREATMENT OF A GUEST ROOM
Where economy is not a matter of importance.—Panelled walls.—Louis XV painted furniture.—Taffeta curtains and bed-cover.—Chintz chair-covers.—Cream net sash-curtains.—Figured linen window-shades.
CHAPTER XXVIII A MODERN HOUSE IN WHICH GENUINE JACOBEAN FURNITURE Is APPROPRIATELY SET
Traditional colour-scheme of crimson and gold.
CHAPTER XXIX UNCONVENTIONAL BREAKFAST-ROOMS AND SPORTS BALCONIES
Porch-rooms.—Appropriate furnishings.—Colour schemes.
CHAPTER XXX SUN-ROOMS
Colour schemes according to climate and season.—A small, cheap, summer house converted into one of some pretentions by altering vital details.
CHAPTER XXXI TREATMENT OF A WOMAN'S DRESSING-ROOM
Solving problems of the toilet.—Shoe cabinets.—Jewel cabinets.—Dressing tables.
CHAPTER XXXII THE TREATMENT OF CLOSETS
Variety of closets.—Colour scheme.—Chintz covered boxes.
CHAPTER XXXIII TREATMENT OF A NARROW HALL
Furniture.—Device for breaking length of hall.
CHAPTER XXXIV TREATMENT OF A VERY SHADED LIVING-ROOM
In a warm climate.—In a cool climate.—Warm and cold colours.
CHAPTER XXXV SERVANTS' ROOMS
Practical and suitable attractiveness.
CHAPTER XXXVI TABLE DECORATION
Appropriateness the keynote.—Tableware.—Linen, lace, and flowers.—Japanese simplicity.—Background.
CHAPTER XXXVII WHAT TO AVOID IN INTERIOR DECORATION: RULES FOR BEGINNERS
Appropriateness.—Intelligent elimination.—Furnishings.—Colour scheme.—Small suites.—Background.—Placing rugs and hangings.—Treatment of long wall-space.—Men's rooms.—Table decoration.—Tea table.—How to train the taste, eye, and judgment.
CHAPTER XXXVIII FADS IN COLLECTING
A panier fleuri collection.—A typical experience in collecting.—A "find" in an obscure American junk-shop.—Getting on the track of some Italian pottery.—Collections used as decoration.—A "find" in Spain.
CHAPTER XXXIX WEDGWOOD POTTERY, OLD AND MODERN
The history of Wedgwood.—Josiah Wedgwood, the founder.
CHAPTER XL ITALIAN POTTERY
Statuettes.
CHAPTER XLI VENETIAN GLASS, OLD AND MODERN
Murano Museum collection.—Table-gardens in Venetian glass.
Four Fundamental Principles of Interior Decoration Re-stated.
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE I Portion of a Drawing-room, Perfect in Composition and Detail.
PLATE II Bedroom in Country House. Modern Painted Furniture.
PLATE III Suggestion for Treatment of a Very Small Bedroom.
PLATE IV A Man's Office in Wall Street.
PLATE V A Corner of the Same Office.
PLATE VI Another View of the Same Office.
PLATE VII Corner of a Room, Showing Painted Furniture, Antique and Modern.
PLATE VIII Example of a Perfect Mantel, Ornaments and Mirror.
PLATE IX Dining-room in Country House, Showing Modern Painted Furniture.
PLATE X Dining-room Furniture, Italian Renaissance, Antique.
PLATE XI Corner of Dining-room in New York Apartment, Showing Section of Italian Refectory Table and Italian Chairs, both Antique and Renaissance in Style.
PLATE XII An Italian Louis XVI Salon in a New York Apartment.
PLATE XIII Another Side of the Same Italian Louis XVI Salon.
PLATE XIV A Narrow Hall Where Effect of Width is Attained by Use of Tapestry with Vista.
PLATE XV Venetian Glass, Antique and Modern.
PLATE XVI Corner of a Room in a Small Empire Suite.
PLATE XVII An Example of Perfect Balance and Beauty in Mantel Arrangement.
PLATE XVIII Corner of a Drawing-room, Furniture Showing Directoire Influence.
PLATE XIX Entrance Hall in New York Duplex Apartment. Italian Furniture.
PLATE XX Combination of Studio and Living-room in New York Duplex Apartment.
PLATE XXI Part of a Victorian Parlour in One of the Few Remaining New York Victorian Mansions.
PLATE XXII Two Styles of Day-beds, Modern Painted.
PLATE XXIII Boudoir in New York Apartment. Painted Furniture, Antique and Reproductions.
PLATE XXIV Example of Lack of Balance in Mantel Arrangement.
PLATE XXV Treatment of Ground Lying Between House and Much Travelled Country Road.
PLATE XXVI An Extension Roof in New York Converted into a Balcony.
PLATE XXVII A Common-place Barn Made Interesting.
PLATE XXVIII Narrow Entrance Hall of a New York Antique Shop.
PLATE XXIX Example of a Charming Hall Spoiled by Too Pronounced a Rug.
PLATE XXX A Man's Library.
PLATE XXXI A Collection of Empire Furniture, Ornaments, and China.
PLATE XXXII Italian Reproductions in Pottery After Classic Models.
"Those who duly consider the influence of the fine-arts on the human mind, will not think it a small benefit to the world, to diffuse their productions as wide, and preserve them as long as possible. The multiplying of copies of fine work, in beautiful and durable materials, must obviously have the same effect in respect to the arts as the invention of printing has upon literature and the sciences: by their means the principal productions of both kinds will be forever preserved, and will effectually prevent the return of ignorant and barbarous ages."
JOSIAH WEDGWOOD: Catalogue of 1787.
One of the most joyful obligations in life should be the planning and executing of BEAUTIFUL HOMES, keeping ever in mind that distinction is not a matter of scale, since a vast palace may find its rival in the smallest group of rooms, provided the latter obeys the law of good line, correct proportions, harmonious colour scheme and appropriateness: a law insisting that all useful things be beautiful things.
THE ART OF INTERIOR DECORATION
CHAPTER I
HOW TO REARRANGE A ROOM
Lucky is the man or woman of taste who has no inherited eyesores which, because of association, must not be banished! When these exist in large numbers one thing only remains to be done: look them over, see to what period the majority belong, and proceed as if you wanted a mid-Victorian, late Colonial or brass-bedstead room.
To rearrange a room successfully, begin by taking everything out of it (in reality or in your mind), then decide how you want it to look, or how, owing to what you own and must retain, you are obliged to have it look. Design and colour of wall decorations, hangings, carpets, lighting fixtures, lamps and ornaments on mantel, depend upon the character of your furniture.
It is the mantel and its arrangement of ornaments that sound the keynote upon first entering a room.
Conventional simplicity in number and arrangement of ornaments gives balance and repose, hence dignity. Dignity once established, one can afford to be individual, and introduce a riot of colours, provided they are all in the same key. Luxurious cushions, soft rugs and a hundred and one feminine touches will create atmosphere and knit together the austere scheme of line—the anatomy of your room. Colour and textiles are the flesh of interior decoration.
In furnishing a small room you can add greatly to its apparent size by using plain paper and making the woodwork the same colour, or slightly darker in tone. If you cannot find wall paper of exactly the colour and shade you wish, it is often possible to use the wrong side of a paper and produce exactly the desired effect.
In repapering old rooms with imperfect ceilings it is easy to disguise this by using a paper with a small design in the same tone. A perfectly plain ceiling paper will show every defect in the surface of the ceiling.
If your house or flat is small you can gain a great effect of space by keeping the same colour scheme throughout—that is, the same colour or related colours. To make a small hall and each of several small rooms on the same floor different in any pronounced way, is to cut up your home into a restless, unmeaning checkerboard, where one feels conscious of the walls and all limitations. The effect of restful spaciousness may be obtained by taking the same small suite and treating its walls, floors and draperies, as has been suggested, in the same colour scheme or a scheme of related keys in colour. That is, wood browns, beiges and yellows; violets, mauves and pinks; different tones of greys; different tones of yellows, greens and blues.
Now having established your suite and hall all in one key, so that there is absolutely no jarring note as one passes from room to room, you may be sure of having achieved that most desirable of all qualities in interior decoration—repose. We have seen the idea here suggested carried out in small summer homes with most successful results; the same colour used on walls and furniture, while exactly the same chintz was employed in every bedroom, opening out of one hall. By this means it was possible to give to a small, unimportant cottage, a note of distinction otherwise quite impossible. Here, however, let us say that, if the same chintz is to be used in every room, it must be neutral in colour—a chintz in which the colour scheme is, say, yellows in different tones, browns in different tones, or greens or greys. To vary the character of each room, introduce different colours in the furniture covers, the sofa-cushions and lamp-shades. Our point is to urge the repetition of a main background in a small group of rooms; but to escape monotony by planning that the accessories in each room shall strike individual notes of decorative, contrasting colour.
PLATE II
A room with modern painted furniture is shown here. Lines and decorations Empire.
Note the lyre backs of chairs and head board in day-bed. Treatment of this bed is that suggested where twin beds are used and room affords wall space for but one of them.
What to do with old floors is a question many of us have faced. If your house has been built with floors of wide, common boards which have become rough and separated by age, in some cases allowing dust to sift through from the cellar, and you do not wish to go to the expense of all-over carpets, you have the choice of several methods. The simplest and least expensive is to paint or stain the floors. In this case employ a floor painter and begin by removing all old paint. Paint removers come for the purpose. Then have the floors planed to make them even. Next, fill the cracks with putty. The most practical method is to stain the floors some dark colour; mahogany, walnut, weathered oak, black, green or any colour you may prefer, and then wax them. This protects the colour. In a room where daintiness is desired, and economy is not important, as for instance in a room with white painted furniture, you may have white floors and a square carpet rug of some plain dark toned velvet; or, if preferred, the painted border may be in come delicate colour to match the wall paper. To resume, if you like a dull finish, have the wax rubbed in at intervals, but if you like a glossy background for rugs, use a heavy varnish after the floors are coloured. This treatment we suggest for more or less formal rooms. In bedrooms, put down an inexpensive filling as a background for rugs, or should yours be a summer home, use straw matting.
For halls and dining-rooms a plain dark-coloured linoleum, costing not less than two dollars a yard makes and inexpensive floor covering. If it is waxed it becomes not only very durable but, also, extremely effective, suggesting the dark tiles in Italian houses. We do not advise the purchase of the linoleums which represent inlaid floors, as they are invariably unsuccessful imitations.
If it is necessary to economise and your brass bedstead must be used even though you dislike it, you can have it painted the colour of your walls. It requires a number of coats. A soft pearl grey is good. Then use a colour, or colours, in your silk or chintz bedspread. Sun-proof material in a solid colour makes an attractive cover, with a narrow fringe in several colours straight around the edges and also, forming a circle or square on the top of the bed-cover.
If your gas or electric fixtures are ugly and you cannot afford more attractive ones, buy very cheap, perfectly plain, ones and paint them to match the walls, giving decorative value to them with coloured silk shades.
PLATE III
Shows one end of a very small bedroom with modern painted furniture, so simple in line and decoration that it would be equally appropriate either for a young man or for a young woman. We say "young," because there is something charmingly fresh and youthful about this type of furniture.
The colour is pale pistache green, with mulberry lines, the same combination of colours being repeated in painting the walls which have a grey background lined with mulberry—the broad stripe—and a narrow green line. The bed cover is mulberry, the lamp shade is green with mulberry and grey in the fringe.
On the walls are delightful old prints framed in black glass with gold lines, and a narrow moulding of gilded oak, an old style revived.
A square of antique silk covers the night table, and the floor is polished hard wood.
Here is your hall bedroom, the wee guest room in a flat, or the extra guest room under the eaves of your country house, made equally beguiling. The result of this artistic simplicity is a restful sense of space.