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The Practical Book Of Furnishing The Small House And Apartment | by Edward Stratton Holloway



We are so blinded by custom that we seldom consider what a mysterious endowment of our human nature is this sense of beauty and our satis-faction in it, and our longing for its perfect presence. Beyond what is useful, what is true, what is good and orderly and just, there clings to the soul of man this idea of what is infinitely beautiful. A man may not be able to explain it, but there it is. He may not be able to agree with other men as to what constitutes such beauty, but the sense of it is there in him and in them, importunate, indestructible. Canon George William Douglas, Cathedral Of St. John The Divine, New York. From an ex tempore address at the Cathedral Auxilliary meeting, Diocese of Pennsylvania, reprinted in The Living Church.

TitleThe Practical Book Of Furnishing The Small House And Apartment
AuthorEdward Stratton Holloway
PublisherJ. B. Lippincott Company
Year1922
Copyright1922, J. B. Lippincott Company
AmazonThe Practical Book Of Furnishing The Small House & Apartment

By Edward Stratton Holloway, Joint Author Of "The Practical Book Of Interior Decoration"

With 9 Illustrations In Colour, 198 In Doubletone And 7 Diagrams

The Practical Book Of Furnishing The Small House A 2

To C. G. H. Who Has Made My Own Home A Happy Place To Live In.

-Foreword
A Reviewer in a noted journal remarked upon the naive expression introducing The Practical Book of Interior Decoration: It is hard to understand why someone has not written such a book before. T...
-Foreword. Continued
V. In addition to the many illustrations of furniture and textiles, the reader is supplied with numerous examples of furnishing by noted architects, decorators, and householders of knowledge and taste...
-Introduction. Aids To Decision Upon Method Of Furnishing
The Necessity Of Plan SUCCESSFUL homes are not produced in haphazard fashion, and those that are not satisfactory are usually so because of the lack of any well-realised idea of precisely the sort of...
-Methods Of Furnishing
The first step is to determine precisely the sort of furnishing desired, or possible. There are three modes in which the home of moderate dimensions may be treated: I. The Modern Style This is a tho...
-Physical Conditions That Indicate Choice Of Method of Furnishing
As there are three methods of furnishing, so are there also three physical conditions which have their influence in deciding which of these methods to employ. I. The Architecture Of The House A bung...
-Temperamental And Social Considerations Of Methods Of Furnishing
These are quite as important as those just reviewed. There are those of exceedingly simple and plain tastes to whom ornament is distasteful and even seems an affectation. The Modern method will be fo...
-A Discussion Of The British Point Of View On Methods Of Furnishing
The recital of the respective advantages of Modern and Liberal Period furnishing would not be complete without taking into account valuable expressions of opinion upon the subject in notable British j...
-Part I. Colour And Form. Chapter I. The Practical Use Of Colour
Beauty; that's colour and proportion. John Donne, An Anatomy of the World Colour As A Reality AS all objects possess colour it is not possible to proceed with the purchase or use of furnishings o...
-Harmonies Of Likeness And Contrast In Colour
What is harmony? We frequently hear those speaking of friends say: They are so congenial because they have so much in common, or else: Although they are so different they get along well together - ...
-Colour-Equipment And Use
Reviewing the preceding sections, what do we find our equipment of colour for practical household use to be? First, there are the normal hues of bright colour - best employed but in small quantity, a...
-Colour-Schemes
Numerous colour combinations will be suggested throughout the following sections on actual furnishing, but it is needful that the general management of colour should have attention here. There are ma...
-Chapter II. House-Furnishing Forms
Using One's Natural Perception Of Form IN perhaps no other department of house-furnishing will the usual common-sense of the individual be so fully a guide as in the matter of form. Not everyone has ...
-Furniture Arrangements Suggested By Use
But planning and arranging must not only be for correctness of effect but for comfort and convenience. So far are they from being at enmity that beauty is almost invariably willing to lend herself as ...
-Furniture Balance
In the arrangement of furniture Balance must also be considered - we must see that all the tall and heavy furniture does not gravitate to one portion or to one side of the room but that the large and ...
-Movement: Its Abuse And Its Value
The power of movement in attracting attention is well illustrated by a very homely example. A green insect upon a green leaf runs an excellent chance of escaping attention so long as it remains quiet,...
-Furniture Scale
Scale in the department of form refers to the relative sizes of objects or portions of them, and it is of so great importance that several references were made to it in the first section of this chapt...
-Form In Furniture
Fortunately, the reader does not need to concern himself with the designing of furniture - the study of a lifetime - but only with its selection. Material, colour, and covering all fall into their nat...
-Furniture Design In Relation To The Selection Of Textiles
From the days of Helen down to the latest revelations of the divorce court we have grown used to the idea of extreme beauty in woman being an abundant breeder of trouble; and yet we are apt to conside...
-Furniture Texture
Mr. George Leland Hunter said in his admirable work Decorative Textiles: The word is Latin for weave. It is of Textiles the most distinctive quality, and when applied to other materials such as woo...
-Part II. Modern, Non-Period Furnishing. The Advantages And Characteristics Of The Style
Present-Day Conditions WE are living in a changed age, and, though there will be readjustments, we need not expect the world again to be as it was. In our household life we might term it the servantl...
-Adapting Furnishings To Life
Under such conditions as the above, and others individually affecting us, it is the part of wisdom in many cases to simplify one's mode of life and avoid all features which entail unnecessary labour: ...
-Characteristics And Uses Of The Furniture Style
As has been said, this is an extremely various mode. Let us begin with the simplest and proceed to other developments. In America, Great Britain, and the Colonies there already are many who, desiring ...
-Section I. The Simplest And Most Inexpensive Furnishing. Chapter I. Principles, Procedure, And Materials
The Point Of View THERE are undoubtedly some who at the very beginning of considering an improvement in furnishing will need to revise their ideas as to what good furnishing is; substituting new idea...
-Walls And Ceilings
First, then, let us ensure the effect of spaciousness - let us make the best possible use of the facilities at our disposal. Light, cheerful walls are our first care, and these may be of plaster, tint...
-Floors
Floors are the foundation, and to appear to lie in their appropriate place, they should be darker than the walls. In the present consideration they are of great importance, for large rugs are costly ...
-Furniture
The present writer yields to no one in his love for beautiful period furniture (though not as too often employed) but is nevertheless emphatic in stating that in many cases an undue proportion of the ...
-American Furniture
Plates, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, and 23 show a representative selection from a very large assortment of furniture that has been made here for a number of years and which has found its place in many America...
-American Furniture. Part 2
For general use in such rooms - and also as dining-tables - it is doubtful if anything better than the gate-leg table has been devised. Originating in the days of Cromwell they have ever since shown t...
-American Furniture. Part 3
Returning to the subject of dining-room furnishing it should be said that there is now a vogue for the technically-so-called breakfast-room suites. Originally designed for homes containing such rooms,...
-American Furniture. Part 4
Plates 22 and 23 show bedroom furniture of more ornamental forms than the above, which may be used, either plain or decorated, in the choicer rooms. The twins bedsteads at once suggest the remark that...
-American Furniture. Part 5
Mr. Thorpe is also making a specialty of designing colour-prints to be used as wall decoration, and, as these are of the utmost value in carrying out such schemes of colour, it is a pleasure to learn ...
-Chapter II. Actual Furnishing Of The Most Inexpensive Character
The Hall AT the very entrance we find a marked difference between the small house and the apartment. No furnishing can be satisfactory without an entire realisation of the purpose for which a room is...
-The Living-Room
The appropriate character of living-room furniture, both oak and mahogany, for inexpensive furnishing has already been indicated in the previous chapter. In either case the paint-pot, whether professi...
-The Dining-Room
This illustration brings us to the dining-room, and also to the question, Need there be a dining-room? Of late years quite a movement towards its abolishment has developed; or at least dispensing wit...
-Woman's Bedroom
On the second floor a change in the doorhangings may be made, thus giving variety, and in the special room of the lady of the house refinement may be the dominant note. The advantage of this system we...
-Man's Bedroom
As this room should be virile, use for it dark oak - Early English or dark brown stain - or mahogany furniture if employed elsewhere as well. At the door there will be the hanging of mulberry; to acco...
-The Young Girl's Room
It is not difficult to provide here a charming retreat, very different, it will be found, from the conventional rooms of her friends. And here again is there a great variation in fabrics and colouring...
-Particulars And Materials Applicable To Any Scale Of Furnishing
THE general principles of furnishing have been most carefully elucidated and practically applied to inexpensive interiors in the previous portions of the volume. This now seems the appropriate place t...
-Particulars And Materials Applicable To Any Scale Of Furnishing. Part 2
Before a final adjustment, it is always advisable to try fabrics in the room in which they are to be used. The precise tone that will admirably suit one room may not answer in another. But the trial s...
-Particulars And Materials Applicable To Any Scale Of Furnishing. Part 3
If the man be a smoker, let him beware of many of the commercial sets and humidors which are vulgarly ornamented. Ash-trays of Benares beaten brass, Japanese porcelain, and the like, may be bought for...
-Section II. Modern Furnishing Of Medium Cost. Chapter I. Actual Furnishing Of Moderate Expense
DIVIDING furnishing into sections by standards of expense can only of course be very approximate. Indeed the parcelling out of beauty in accordance with dollar-values is to the writer an extremely dis...
-Living-Room Furnishing
Let us begin with the living-room illustrated in Plate 2. Its equipment is inexpensive, and but for a few items it might have been included in the previous division. In the chapter on Arrangements Su...
-Dining-Room Furnishing
We already have the light grey wall, the dark grey polished floor and the blue hanging. The panelling of the living-room wall may stand alone and the dining-room be given a somewhat different, though ...
-Woman's Bedroom Or Boudoir Furnishing
In this room, to be used for either of the above purposes and furnished accordingly, a departure, which after all is merely apparent, will be made from the scheme for the sake of variety. Two of the t...
-Joint Bedroom Furnishing
In a room to be occupied by both husband and wife the colouring may be made more robust without losing its charm. The green rug may remain, and the furniture be grey, walnut, or dark oak. There should...
-The Young Girl's Room Furnishing
As blue and yellow produce green, so do blue and red produce violet. The modified violets, soft mauves and plums go beautifully with rose and with carefully chosen grey-blues. Add to these tan, buff o...
-The Young Man's Room Furnishing
Of course if the young chap wishes to turn his sleeping quarters into the usual den, trophy-shop, or college-room the writer has nothing more to say. Let him go ahead! But perhaps he is more intrinsic...
-The Child's Room Furnishing
The pictorial idea has been here greatly overdone. Pictured wall-papers and friezes, pictured screens and furniture are all supplied, and unhappily too many of them are commonly used at once. Presumab...
-English Furnishing
As was mentioned in the Foreword, it would manifestly be impossible in a volume of this size fully to illustrate British commercial furniture and textiles. Inexpensive pieces have already been shown, ...
-Chapter II. Additional Facilities In The Development Of Modern Furnishing Of Medium Cost
AS will have been seen, the plan of this volume is cumu-lative; the aim has been to develop gradually, and first to give by the examples of furnishing presented a firm basis of clear understanding of ...
-I. Architectural Furniture Development
By reason of architectural arrangement and special features some interiors are attractive before, as we sometimes say, a stick of furniture is placed: others lack all such advantages. Where means perm...
-II. Furniture Development By Wall-Treatment
At the very outset the reader should realise that in some of the smartest and most expensive decoration the walls are absolutely plain (as will be seen in a number of plates in this volume) and so sho...
-III. Furniture Development By Textiles
It has been seen what crisp and attractive decoration may be accomplished by the use of simple and generally most inexpensive fabrics: when others from medium cost to a fair degree of expense are adde...
-IV. Development By Furniture
Furniture still simple in its lines but of more expensive character will enlarge the scope of Modern decoration. Except for settees we have not yet employed upholstered pieces. Clumsy overstuffed chai...
-Chapter III. Modern Furnishing Of Broader Scope And Somewhat Greater Expense
WE may now procede to use the facilities so far considered - or rather some of them; for enough has now been mentioned in the way of varied wall-treatments, textiles, furniture and colourings to furni...
-The Dining-Room Furnishing
One of the finishes of the set already shown in Plate 45 is very dark with a handsome but restrained Japanese raised ornamentation. This may be employed, or the same set in walnut, or something else o...
-Sun-Room Furnishing
If this is unprotected it must be treated as a porch and only materials undamageable by weather employed. We shall therefore consider that which is properly a room, it being provided with glazed sash....
-Boudoir Furnishing
We have the straw-coloured walls, panelled or plain as preferred. There will be a day-bed, settee or chaise-longue, this giving an opportunity for the use of a large pattern. Plate 39 shows a very bea...
-Woman's Bedroom Furnishing
A bedroom communicating with the boudoir should be uniform but not precisely identical. It seems preferable to keep the window-treatment uniform, so the linen may be employed for the bedspread and one...
-Second Bedroom Furnishing
If for a woman's use only, then ivory, cream, grey, mahogany, or walnut furniture: if sometimes used for a male guest, then the latter three only. Sage green rug and deep raspberry upholstery - taffet...
-Man's Bedroom Furnishing
One of the textiles here illustrated is of the oddest possible character and the conservative man would have none of it. The more adventurous spirit will, however, be intrigued by it and it is really ...
-Joint Bedroom In The First Triad Furnishing
An excellent bedroom-set for a room occupied by husband and wife would be one of the nature of that in walnut illustrated in Plate 59. We have not as yet stressed the yellow note and we may here do so...
-Guest-Room Furnishing
Unless a guest-chamber is never to be occupied by a man it is difficult to understand the frivolous femininity usually prescribed for its furnishing. Plate 12 has the correct atmosphere, and this may ...
-Card Room Or Den Furnishing
It is justifiable in such a room to depart from the usual scheme of furnishing, and indeed it is often desirable to provide one room in the nature of a delightful surprise, but not a shock. Chinese-re...
-Section III. The Highest Development Of Modern Furnishing. Chapter I. The Work Of Interior Architects Or Decorators
THE highest development of modern furnishing may be reached in two ways: through the services of interior architects or decorators of individuality and skill, they supplying specially designed walls, ...
-British Interior Architects
As the Modern method of decoration has been pursued to a greater extent in England than in America, and has there been more fully worked out as a style, that development will first be considered. It c...
-British Interior Architects. Part 2
The bedroom (Plate 66) reverts to the grey background, very individually relieved in this case by black and gold. The doors are those of wardrobes built into the walls, thus providing abundant hanging...
-British Interior Architects. Part 3
Akin to this is the dining-room elevation (Plate 68) with primrose walls and decorations, this time of upright ovals. The black and white notes of these are carried out in the furniture, and, while st...
-American Modern Decoration
As has been said, the work of decorators in America is mostly of period character, inclining more each year toward the liberal interpretation of that manner of furnishing: there are some, however, who...
-Chapter II. Development Of The Modern Method Possible To The Householder
SO beautiful are the fine pieces of furniture and the wonderful fabrics provided both in Europe and America where price is not of the first consideration, that, with perhaps some aid from the carpente...
-Drawing-Room Or Reception-Room Furnishing
The settee and chairs appearing in Plate 82 show a type of furniture admirably adapted to this purpose. These particular pieces are not straight reproductions of authentic period furniture but are e...
-Modern Dining-Room Furnishing
It will have been seen that in the reception-room the suite idea has been totally ignored, and so will it be here. When this is possible the result will invariably be found more individual and interes...
-Morning-Room Furnishing
We here have the possibility of the greatest comfort and charm. Such a room is a lounge for the various members of the family, and it is of informal nature. It should be bright and cheerful with abund...
-Library Furnishing
With this scheme of furnishing the library should express dignity without heaviness. It should have abundant light, be so situated that it is free from noise or disturbance, and be comfortable. Built-...
-Bed-Chambers Furnishing
The type of bed-room furniture illustrated by the Brittany suite in Plate 94 is admirable for such furnishing and is suitable for the room of either man or woman. For a woman's room French grey is a...
-Individual Features
Successful Modern decoration may be termed the Triumph of Individuality. Given character to express, cultivated taste, and abundant means, there is scarcely a limit to the beauty that this mode is cap...
-Furnishing Materials
A few very miscellaneous hints as to materials may be added. The mistake made by many of abundant means is in resting content with ordinary products shown in the average shop or department-store when...
-Part III. Liberal Period Furnishing. Chapter I. Introduction
THE NECESSARY POINT OF VIEW. OAK OR MAHOGANY? WALNUT AND OTHER WOODS. FURNITURE PURCHASABLE IN THE GENERAL MARKET. I mean that side of art which is, or ought to be, done by the ordinary workman while...
-Oak Or Mahogany?
Let us assume that the householder has read the Introduction to this volume, discussing the uses of both the Modern and the Liberal Period methods of furnishing and, having considered their relative a...
-Oak Or Mahogany?. Continued
In this consideration archaeology has not been given the ghost of a chance - everything has been reasoned upon such a basis as the man constantly employs in his business or the woman in her home or in...
-Walnut And Other Woods
It may be a surprise to the general reader to learn that in Europe, during the various periods, more furniture was made of walnut than of any other material. In England it occupied the interval betwe...
-Furniture Purchasable In The General Market
This book does not deal with antique furniture, such furniture being usually too costly for any but the plethoric pocket-book; nor will it consider large and magnificent pieces inappropriate to premis...
-The Practical Use Of Renaissance Furnishing Today
THESE centuries comprise the Renaissance movement and the Baroque (pronounce Barok, not Baroak) to its end in Continental Europe and down to the homelike Dutch influence in England. The Revival of L...
-The Practical Use Of Renaissance Furnishing Today. Continued
Appropriateness allows the use of other materials evidencing the correct spirit, and so the Caen-stone of the hall in Plate 10 forms an excellent background to the Italian furniture. The antique red d...
-The Baroque Influence On Furniture
As always, the transition was everywhere gradual. At first furniture retained its generally Renaissance lines with but few Baroque characteristics: Plate 105 shows adaptations of this type. Later, orn...
-The Baroque Influence On Furniture. Continued
English Baroque furniture is seen in the following illustrations: Plates 109, in, 112, 114, 115. Plate 114 is a beautiful example of formal treatment combined with comfort, and of richness contrasted...
-The Spanish-American Style Furnishing
We should be grateful to the Spanish Mission priests not only for introducing into America the early architecture of their native land, but for so successfully adapting it to its new home with its loc...
-Liberal Period Furnishing
Liberal, or International-Inter period, or Catholic, furnishing consists in the use of the furniture, textiles, and accessories of various nationalities or various periods, or both, in combination. Us...
-The Third Movement: Rococo Decoration. The First Portion Of The Eighteenth Century
Rococo Decoration AS the Baroque movement was formerly considered one with the Renaissance, so have the Baroque and Rococo influences often, wrongly, been confused. Notwithstanding gradual transition...
-The Rococo Decoration. The First Portion Of The Eighteenth Century. Continued
The tables were often, and the cabinets, commodes, and desks almost always, of marqueterie, or inlay, or Vernis-Martin, with the characteristic chiselled metal mounts: naturally even reproductions of ...
-The Dutch Influence on Furniture In England
There is but one point of likeness, occurring to the writer, between the furniture of France and that generally current in England during the first half of the eighteenth century - the universal use o...
-Chapter IV. The Fourth Movement: The Neo-Classic Influence
The Latter Portion Of The Eighteenth Century And The Early Nineteenth Century. The Cause Of The New Movement HUMANITY loves variety. It may not weary of accustomed beauty but eventually it desires a...
-Neo-Classic Furnishing In England. The Brothers Adam
Those eminent men Robert and James Adam, after extensive travel in Southern Europe and personal study of the monuments of antiquity there to be found, established themselves with their two brothers as...
-Neo-Classic Furnishing In England. Thomas Chippendale
Those who wonder at the slight knowledge we possess of the personality of William Shakespeare may well consider the case of Thomas Chippendale, busily engaged in his shop in St. Martin's Lane, London,...
-Neo-Classic Furnishing In England. George Hepplewhite
The next outstanding name among the great designers of this prolific period is that of Hepplewhite. We are ignorant, likewise, of the date of his birth, but he died in 1786; the business being then ca...
-Neo-Classic Furnishing In England. Thomas Sheraton
The contrariety of human nature could scarcely be better illustrated than in the personality of Thomas Sheraton. PLATE 134. A RESTFUL LIVING-ROOM WITH SHERATON AND AMERICAN EMPIRE FURN1TURE. The ...
-The Neo-Classic Furniture Of France. Louis XVI
What French furniture afterward became happily does not concern us now: our immediate consideration is with what (together with the restrained forms of the previous reign) the writer is not alone in f...
-Directoire Furniture
The guillotine had done its work, the heads of the luxurious, extravagant, and charming nobility had fallen, and France was given over to parvenus, a government which fancied itself the parallel of th...
-The Consulate And Empire Furnishing
The youth of Corsica became General Napoleon Buonaparte, then in 1799 First Consul, and in 1804 Emperor of France. All things were to become new, and prominently among them the setting for this new di...
-Neo-Classic Furnishing In Italy
When it is remembered that during the eighteenth century the sons of the gentry of England were dispatched upon the grand tour for the completion of their education and the broadening of their views...
-American Colonial And American Empire Furnishing
Furniture It being rather well known that on the Fourth of July, 1776, the American Colonies declared themselves free and independent of mother England, and that at Paris in 1782 England agreed to th...
-American Colonial And American Empire Furnishing. Continued
American developments make a decided contribution to the array of furniture employed: especially to be noted are the acanthus-carved high and low posts of bedsteads, the manner in which the spiral for...
-Liberal Neo-Classic Furnishing
Now why should we deliberate and puzzle our brains in choosing between the use of the sterling, home-like furnishing of England and America, the elegance of France, and the gaiety of Southern Europe? ...
-Colour-Schemes Applying To Various Styles Of Decoration
THE large number of schemes given throughout the sections on Modern furnishing are equally valuable for period practice, strong or quieter tones being chosen according to the intensity employed during...
-Apartments And How To Live In Them
THE writer has been an apartment dweller for a number of years and is in a position for the enlightening of the unbelieving. He would therefore say how much cooler in summer is the well-chosen city ap...
-The Kitchen
The Kitchen is the workshop of woman - mistress or maid: and in either case efficiency is not advanced by exhaustion. No man would dream of working during a large portion of his life under such inconv...
-Floors And Their Treatment
Floors will here be considered in their various kinds and from the decorative point of view: if any reader wishes to finish his own he will find full instructions in the booklets sent to applicants by...
-Artificial Lighting
There is no utilitarian advantage in lighting the ceiling of a room, and every aesthetic consideration is against the practice. The effect is garish, unhomelike, and destructive of the proper values...
-Fashion And Style
The difference between mere fashion and intrinsic style is radical and complete. Fashion may be, and often is, stylistically bad, but however good it chances upon occasion to be, it has but one use in...
-The Practical Books Of Home Life Enrichment
BACH PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED. HANDSOMELY BOUND. Octavo. Cloth. In a slip case. The Practical Book Of Interior Decoration By EBERLEIN, McCLURE and HOLLOWAY New Edition. The Practical Book Of Early Am...






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