Household Organization

The room may be called a study, morning-room, or library, according to its purpose, bearing in mind that although the name is more high sounding, a library with few books is only ridiculous. And when there are many and good books, the room must be held in great respect, and those who use it trained to extreme neatness and order. I find it a good plan to instal my eldest son as responsible librarian at a small salary; he sees that the younger children put away their books after them.

A gas-standard lights a study better than anything else for general use, though "the Queen's reading lamp" is good for weak eyes.

The standard must be firm on its base, so as not easily to upset; it is less in the way if it stands on the floor rather than on the table, and it should be capable of being raised to the height of six feet, or lowered to any point. It ought to be easily movable in any direction, and the tube long enough to admit of its being placed in any part of the room. The only kind of tubing that really prevents a disagreeable smell escaping from the gas is the snake tubing. I had at first a kind that was dearer than the ordinary india-rubber tubing, but, although assured by the gasfitter that it would be inodorous, I was obliged to change it for the snake, for which I paid twelve shillings, and have had no trouble since.

We all know that wax candles are the nicest and most becoming light for a drawing-room; but they are dear, and candlesticks, however elegant, require frequent cleaning. The commoner kind of candles are greasy, and grease is very troublesome when it drops about, though wax and sperm are readily removed by warming the spots. There is a kind of candle called the dropless candle which answers very well to its name.

Paraffin, and almost all patent candles, fill the air with burnt smoke, and this, to many people, is insufferable.

Sperm candles are preferable to any others for general use at the piano and for bed-rooms. And candles need not be an expensive item when a house is well fitted with gas, as much music practising may be done by daylight and gaslight; while in bed-rooms we ought not to require much length of candlelight.

There is no need of more than one candle to be carried about, and that is for the person who turns off the gas to go upstairs with.

An Italian lucerna is a picturesque object for this purpose; oil is burnt in it – colza will do, though they burn olive oil in Italy, and it gives double the light of colza. On no account use petroleum, or any of the mineral oils. Besides their horrible smell and associations, all the kinds are more or less explosive, and for the little use for which we should require lamps, the difference in cost is trifling.

One occasionally sees curious and quaint old iron or bronze candlesticks, and it is well to seize the opportunity of purchasing such treasures; but if not fortunate enough to get a better thing, it is easy to procure one of those funny little brass candlesticks, in the shape of a frying-pan, so commonly used in the Belgian hotels.

As there are no servants in our model establishment, tallow candles need never be bought, and no candlebox will be required, nor any kitchen candlesticks, to be stuck periodically in a row in the fender to melt their grease and solder, and lose their extinguishers and snuffers.

So we see, even in this small instance, how a young couple beginning to furnish will want few of these superfluities, and, not being compelled to buy common things for servants, may afford things of choice quality for themselves, and to these they may add others as time goes on.

Take, for another example, the breakfast-cups; they may at first buy two very pretty cups and saucers for their own use, and a third equally pretty for their lady friend, or help, as they may like to call her; and either title is honourable, only one seems kinder than the other.

And so they need not purchase what is called a whole set, or, more shopmanly, a "suite," comprising a dozen of almost everything, whose chief merit is in its completeness, of which we tire; and this merit is destroyed when on breaking one of the two bread-and-butter plates we find it is a last year's pattern, and cannot be matched at the shop without its being specially made for us.

How much more we should be attached to a pretty thing if we could say of it: "Don't you remember we bought that cup when So-and-So came to stay with us?" Such associations endow everyday objects with life.

The original outlay throughout the house may proceed in like manner, and spare rooms may be furnished after the other rooms.

This would enable more young people to marry, and they need not go to a shop whose advertisements recommend them to furnish on the three years' system, by the end of which time they will have paid double the value of their furniture, and most of it will probably be discarded, or broken in pieces.

Perhaps a day may come when nobody will heed an advertisement, and only look at a circular when they write memoranda on its clean side. Then our postmen will be spared the bulk of their work, which makes it a perpetual Valentine's-day for them.

It is too visionary to hope that our eyes may cease to be distressed by posters blazing everywhere, or that nearly half of every book or newspaper we buy may not be made up of advertisements.

But no more on this irritating topic, as I would only counsel those about to furnish not to be too much tempted with novelties, especially patent novelties.

Some of us are beginning to tire of the mediævalism which was the natural reaction from the preposterous designs of the wall-papers, curtains, and other furniture which disguised our rooms – the ridiculous carpets with such patterns as orange-blossoms tied with white satin favours ("So sweet for a bride"), and rugs with huge blue roses.

But we have now gone too far the other way, and made all our houses like "High" churches, not permitting even the simplest unconventional design to interfere with the severity of our Gothic taste. This is a mistake; for as our houses ought not to be turned into Greek temples, as they were in the time of the first French Empire, as little should they be decorated like Gothic churches.

Many styles, and many beautiful yet diverse objects, may be made to harmonize by tasteful arrangement; and this freer latitude is well adapted to our varied moods and our many-sided lives. Few people of moderate means can carry out one style in its entirety.

I have seen a very handsome drawing-room fitted up perfectly in the Louis Quatorze style, and spoiled by some German bead-mats on the table; and some of the most beautiful upholstery I ever saw, of Neo-Greek designs painted on straw-coloured satin, covering chairs of purely Greek form, looked droll on a Brussels carpet with fuchsias upon it.

Twenty years ago, people of taste and pretension to archæological knowledge furnished their houses in the Elizabethan style, with the result of uncomfortable furniture abounding in anachronisms.

The Queen Anne style, so fashionable at present, is far better suited to modern requirements than is the Elizabethan, which is of necessity kept exclusively English. The Jacobean style too is less rigid, as we may with propriety consider that much French and Italian elegance had been imported into the court of Scotland by the two French queens and Mary Stuart. The possession of a portrait by Vandyke would be of itself enough to make one wish to furnish a house in the stately and elegant style of his time.

Although it may not be so pure in taste, the style of the Renaissance is eminently adapted for comfortable household service. The delicate arabesques and grotesques followed from Raffaelle's adornments of the Vatican are not too precious for use in household decoration – where painting cannot be expected to last as long as pictures framed and out of reach of daily handling – and yet they are graceful enough to refresh without exciting a tired mind.

Any one possessing artistic taste and some training can work out these fanciful decorations for home gratification, and being cherished, they will last three or four times as long as the graining of the house-painter. Besides, and this is a great consideration in cities, all the majolica ornaments and tiles, which are so suitable to this style of decoration, will wash, and be bright and clear for ever. Do not despise the Renaissance, for there is much delight in it, though not of the highest kind. We may keep the higher things for higher uses.

A Brussels carpet of Persian pattern is very nice for a drawing-room, as it is unobtrusive, and yet it is cheerful, and suits most styles of furniture. This, like the dining-room carpet, had better be made with a border, and so as to allow of a margin of the floor round it being varnished. If edged with fringe its appearance is enriched; and I do not in practice find the fringe inconveniently displaced by ladies' dresses, nor in dusting, as I feared it might be when I added it to a carpet which required enlarging.

The remarks on dining-room curtains and rods apply equally here, as it is of great consequence that the room should be easily cleaned.

For a young couple beginning to furnish, it may be well to have some of the pretty cretonnes for curtains and chair-coverings, which would last clean and bright while better were being worked on simple materials from patterns, either original or borrowed from the Art Needlework Society. Then the cretonne curtains might be hung in the newly furnished spare bed-room. The chair-coverings would be replaced one by one as others were worked or nice materials met with.

In doing fancy-work, it is better to make one good thing large enough to take a pride in, than countless little elegances, such as mats, antimacassars, table banner-screens, etc., which seldom last long, and are terribly in the way. The time consumed in making pincushions, pocket-tidies, and tiny knick-knacks, would serve to tapestry a room, let alone making curtains for it.

Where there are fine views from the windows, they are better framed as pictures than curtained. Draperies, if they are very beautiful, are more favourably displayed when facing the light (as in the case of portières) than at the windows, where they are liable to fade, and the light shining through them hides their beauty. Draught more often enters from doorways than by the windows; and in summer doors are often unhung for the sake of coolness and additional space, and the portières are comfortable to use on chilly days.

Venetian blinds are the best of any interior blinds, though window awnings are much pleasanter in summer. Red tammy enriches the colour of the room, but it is not agreeable to sit long in a room filled with the flame-coloured light, though this softens as the blinds fade, which they soon do. Yellow blinds are very disagreeable, and tryingly sunny in summer. Blue are as unpleasantly cold, and make people look like ghosts. White holland gives as soft a light as any, and if carefully used the blinds will not go awry. Green tammy is good, but it soon fades.

With a gas fire there is no occasion for a hearth-rug, though fur and other large rugs look very comfortable spread before the windows in winter, and Indian mats look cool in summer, and preserve the carpet from fading.

In buying furniture it is safer to move cautiously. Seize, by all means, anything that strikes you as being "just the very thing," the moment you see it, or it may escape you for ever; but do not be beguiled into buying a whole "suite" of everything at once, because you think you may as well finish the work while you are about it, but let your taste, as well as wisdom, have time to grow. We all know the feeling of vexation we endure when we have committed ourselves to any particular thing, and find subsequently something which would have suited us very much better.

Whatever you buy or make, do not let it be rubbish. Things ill considered get dreadfully in our way, and by-and-by we cannot endure their discordance; that is, if they last long enough for us to weary of them. When you purchase anything, remember that it has to be taken care of and dusted every day, and the smaller the trifle the more troublesome it is to keep clean. Think, before you buy it, whether or not you will like it when it is tarnished, and if you can value it sufficiently to devote thought and a minute of time to it every day for years.

We squander our money on frippery – not in dress merely, but in hideous ornaments for our fire-places, in antimacassars of disagreeably suggestive name, in toys and trinkets and imitation rubbish of all kinds, which encumber our table-surfaces, and are dust-traps occupying the minds and mornings of our parlour-maids to keep them clean. We spend in this taste-destroying trash the change of the twenty pounds which would have bought one ornament of real beauty, which would only take the same time to dust as one of the fifty frivolities costing from half-a-crown to seven-and-sixpence each.

This is mostly so much waste, or worse, because it helps the habit of foolish, ill-considered spending; and while we thus bedizen our drawing-rooms, we render them so uninhabitable that they fall out of use for our own comfort, and become merely show places for visitors.

A long article might be written on dusting. We can hardly have too little of the carpet-broom (which all housemaids love to use every week to the detriment of our carpets), and hardly too much of the feather-brush for lightly touching curtains, walls, and pictures, or of the duster for rubbing furniture. If a little is done daily, furniture will never need polishing, but will always look bright, as dust will not have entered the crevices.

It is easier, and also better for the durability of carpets, to take them up occasionally to be beaten, and have the dusty floor beneath them cleaned, than to have everything smothered weekly in the dust raised by the carpet-broom. A pair of steps is necessary in a house where cleanliness is attended to, to unhang curtains and pictures and replace them after dusting. The walls need to be whisked over weekly with the feather-brush.

The elegant china and glass gaseliers which are now so general are easily cleaned with a damp sponge; those of Venetian glass are still more beautiful, and not much more expensive: these also can be washed with little trouble. Adopting the plan of cleaning one room each day, it will not take a great deal of time, or cause much fatigue; while the light daily dusting required is a mere nothing to any one doing it dexterously.

I have a great dislike of chiffoniers; the very name presupposes them receptacles of chiffons and lumber. I cannot see any use for them in a drawing-room. Music-books should be in the music-stand, a lady's work in her work-table, and books either in use or put away in the book-case.

A portfolio-stand is of great service in preserving and displaying drawings and prints which require careful and practised handling. Sir Felix Slade, the eminent print-collector, used to complain that many persons, especially young ladies, made a bent mark with their thumbs in the margin of an engraving; he always insisted on having his prints taken up by what he called their north-west corner, and carefully laid on the print-stand. A portfolio-stand should have a piece of stuff laid over the books and cases, wrapped inside the woodwork of the stand. This is easily removed when the stand is in use; as it is left hanging down on one side, it keeps much dust from the pictures, and if of some nice silk or other stuff is ornamental in itself.

A sofa with a rack-end to let down at pleasure at any angle is a great convenience, but such couches are not often made, unless especially ordered.

Numerous mirrors injure the repose of a room, causing bewilderment; but one or two are pleasing, as they have the effect of water in a landscape, repeating the lines and echoing the forms of objects. They also tend to give space, though not to the same extent as pictures do, which are the most decorative of all ornaments; and when they are very good they rank with our most precious possessions.

Brackets may be appropriately used for ornaments, such as terra-cotta and others; a few fine bronzes, besides being handsome in themselves, give value to the colouring of a room.

BED AND DRESSING ROOMS

Ventilation – Window curtains and blinds – Bedsteads – Spring mattresses – Towels – Danger of fire at the toilet – Mantelpiece – Pictures and frames – Superfluous necessaries – Taine's criticisms – Aids to reading in bed – Service of the bath – Improvements in washstands – Arranging the rooms – Attics made beautiful – Sick-rooms – Neatness – Disinfectants – Chlorine gas – Condy's solution – Filters – Invalid chairs – Generous efforts of the medical profession to improve the national health.

We pass a third of our time in our bed-rooms when we are in health, and the whole of it when we are ill; therefore their ventilation and general arrangement demand our most earnest consideration.

Some bed-rooms are draughty, occasioning cold and neuralgia, but the more common fault is that they are not airy enough; for with our extreme attention to what is called "English comfort," we too frequently make our bed-rooms almost air-tight.

This causes restlessness by night and headache by day. It were far better to accustom ourselves to sleep with our windows open, as the night air is not at all injurious in dry weather, unless an east wind is blowing. We must be guided by the weather, and trim to the wind; our feeling will tell us whether we may, or may not, safely leave our windows open much more surely than the almanac. The time when windows should be shut throughout the house is when the dew is rising and falling; then the damp enters and saturates everything.

People seldom attend to this point, but keep their windows open too late in the afternoon, which in Italy is recognized as the dangerous time. We have but little malaria in England, but what little there is is at work just before and after sunset. Many persons, too, who like myself have immense faith in fresh air, throw open their windows on leaving their rooms in the morning, regardless of whether the air be dry and warm, or whether a fog or bitter east wind will penetrate the whole house to damp or chill it. It is more prudent, in case of bleak or raw weather, to wait for an hour or two before opening the windows, ventilation from the door being sufficient for the room while it is empty.

It is useless to lay down laws as to the windows in our variable climate. We must work by our natural thermometer, and let our skin perform one of its most useful functions and tell us whether it is cold or hot; but if our feelings are uncertain, give judgment in favour of fresh air.

If your rooms have the old-fashioned long and narrow windows which are always found in houses built in the reigns of the early Georges, the Japanese paper curtains, being very cheap, are as good as any, the intention being to drape a skeleton window, which curtainless is a dismal object.

But more modern windows should not, or at least need not, have long hanging curtains, but only just sufficient to cover the window without leaving a streak of light. The drapery may hang from one side or from both, according to taste; but unless you are very particular to admit no light in your bed-room, a mere valance, or some ornament at the top of the window, is enough. For instance, some pretty design in fretwork, as the tracery of an Arabian arch, made of deal an inch thick, cut out with a steam saw and stained or enamelled black, would be effective when lined with rose colour, or any drapery suited to your room; and you might furnish an appropriate design for the fretwork. This would be easily dusted, and is not expensive.

White blinds are clean and pleasant for bed-rooms, but dark-green ones are better for persons with weak sight; either these or Venetian blinds are very useful where there are no shutters.

Brass and iron bedsteads have almost entirely superseded wooden ones, and they are generally made without fittings for curtains. Indeed, in our well-built modern houses there are so few draughts to be guarded against that curtains are seldom necessary.

In bed-rooms of the present time valances to the beds are quite superfluous, as the bed-round is completely out of fashion. This was the name of the breadth of carpet which went round three sides of the bed, leaving the remainder of the floor bare. The fashion was healthy and economical, certainly, but it was tryingly ugly and cheerless.

For a bed-room, nothing is so good as the square carpet, with a broad margin of the floor stained and varnished, as this is very easily taken up for the floor and carpet to be cleaned. The carpet must be laid down the first time by a man from the carpet-warehouse, so that it may be evenly stretched, which is seldom done by a carpenter; but after that it is easily spread, as it remains in shape, and needs very few nails to keep it in position.

Bed-room carpets need not have brown paper laid under them, though this is an advantage in other rooms, as it keeps dust and draught from coming through the cracks of the floor, besides saving the carpet from being cut by the edges of the boards. Kidderminster carpets are now made in very nice patterns, and are quite suitable for bed-rooms where Brussels carpets may be thought too expensive.

A hearth-rug is more useful in a bed-room than elsewhere, as a bed-room fire should be of coal or wood, and not of gas, as this is injurious in a bed-room.

Take care never to let the head of the bed be placed before the fire-place. This is sometimes foolishly done, and unsuspecting sleepers get neuralgia from it. In summer a pretty pattern, cut out in tissue-paper so as to resemble lace, tacked on a slight frame covered with black tarletane, and fitted into the fire-place, allows ventilation and keeps out the dust from the chimney. Little girls love to cut these fire-papers, and one of them, with care, lasts two summers, and often three.

When there are no bed-curtains, it is sometimes advisable to line the ironwork at the head of the bed, so that the sleeper may not be exposed to draught. Spring mattresses, with soft woollen mattresses upon them, are the most comfortable beds of any; and Heal's folding spring mattresses, though expensive, cannot be too strongly recommended. These spring beds are so easily made up, that this is a matter of very trifling consideration in any house where there are two pairs of hands, children's or grown-up people's. It is necessary to turn back the bed-clothes completely over the foot of the bed, and leave it to air for an hour, at least, after the window has been opened. There is a great fancy now for having trimmed pillow-covers, and pieces of ornamental needlework to spread over the bed after it is turned down; the fashion is pretty, but superfluous, as a nicely worked counterpane looks equally well, and need not be folded up at bedtime.

Towels may, and should be, ornamented, but not so much as to make them inconvenient for use. The collection of linen exhibited by the Duchess of Edinburgh gave many of us an interesting lesson in things of this kind. One of the silliest pieces of finery seen in a bed or dressing room is the trimmed towel-horse cover. Towels cannot possibly dry if the evaporation is stopped, and even when the cover is made of thin muslin, it is only a troublesome frivolity.

Every lady has her own particular taste about her toilet-table, so that I only give a caution to let it be safe, and not liable to take fire. We frequently want candles on our dressing-tables; therefore it stands to reason that the veil often placed over the looking-glass is highly dangerous. This drapery is intended to keep the sun from scorching the back of the glass, but it is safer to stand the glass elsewhere than in the window when the room is exposed to the midday sun, although it will not be so pleasant for use.

The rose-lined white muslin petticoat which was once such a popular way of concealing a deal dressing-table is highly dangerous. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive any combination more inflammable than the veiled glass set in the midst of cotton window-curtains, and two candles standing on a cotton toilet-cover, with a frilled muslin pincushion between them, and full muslin drapery below.

The most convenient table allows the large square-seated stool, so comfortable to sit on while dressing the hair, to be pushed under it when not in use. When light ornaments are placed on a bed-room mantelpiece and exposed to a current of air, it is advisable to have two upright pieces of board, painted, cut out, or otherwise made ornamental, placed one on each side of the shelf to protect the knick-knacks from being blown down; and if these are numerous, one or two shelves may be put above the mantelpiece, forming a pretty little museum of curiosities which may be too small, or too trifling, to be placed with advantage in the drawing-room; and houses of the class I am describing seldom have a boudoir. If the mantelpiece is covered with cloth or velvet, the shelves and back might be covered with the same, and this would be very becoming to the ornaments. Tunisian or point lace forms a very good edging to a mantelboard, and when a foot deep, or nearly so, it is extremely handsome. Water-colour sketches should abound in a bed-room, souvenirs of places we have visited, or of friends who have made the drawings, being doubly enjoyed when we are recovering from illness, or when we are awake early in the summer morning. Sketches are as pleasant as books, without the trouble of holding them up to our eyes. They should be carefully arranged so as not to look spotty; and they must be hung flat against the wall by having the rings placed high in the frames, as, although it is becoming to the pictures, the effect of them hanging much forward makes many people giddy, and in an invalid will sometimes produce a feeling akin to sea-sickness.