The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-03-29
HOW 10 ENTERTAIN.
Mrs. Sherwood on Furnishing
: Country House.
ACCESSORIES or BEDROOMS.


house, lay IN hummer OF o4tn tuD9. Inc
tia ones, shaped like hat, are most con-
venient. Then there are also the India
rubber portable baths, which are very con-
venient. II there is not bathroom be-
longing 70 every room this will enable an
Eng.ishman to take his tub - cold a.
he pleases, or allow the American TO take
the warmer sponge bath which Americans
generally prefer.
The house should also b well supplied
with lunch baskets for picnics and for the
railway journey. These como now cheap,
and well lifted up with drinking cups,
knives and forks, and spoons, corkscrews,
sandwich boxes, etc. These and great
supply Of unbreakable cups for the lawn
tennis ground are very valuable.
Also any number of tin painted pals
and small pitchers 70 carry hot water, sew
eral services Of plain tea things, and Japa-
nese walters, on which to send tea to the
bedrooms; and in every room should be
placed q table thoroughly furnished with
writing materials and with all the con-
.cniences for writing, sealing and posting
q letter.
shakespeare's bequest TO his wife Of his
second best bed has passed with bit of
post norton ungallantry which has
,iimmed his fame as model husband; but
i. would today, shat second best bed, J" be
& very handsome bequest, not only that it
was Shakespeare's but because it was
doubtless tester" for which there is q
craze. All the old four-posters which our
grandmas sent to the garrett are on their
way back again to the model bedroom.
With all our rage for ventilation and fresh
Dir we no longer fear the bed curtains
which few years ago were supposed to
foster disease and death; because the
model bedroom can be now furnished with
IN inlet ventilator for admitting the fresh
air from without as well as an outlet one
for permitting the egress of the air. Each
gas bracket is provided with pipe placed
above it and piercing the wall, through
which the product OF combustion is
carried out Of the house. This is late
sanitary improvement in London, and is
being introduced in New York.
As for the bed curtains, they are hung
on rods with brass rings, no canopy on
top, so that the curtain can be shaken
and busted freely. This is a great inn
provement on the old upholstered top,
which recalls Dickens description of
Mrs. Todger's boarding house, where at
the top Of the stairs 1.-THE odor Of many
generations Of dinners had gathered
and had never been dispelled," SO the
unpleasant feeling that perhaps whole
generations Of sleepcrs had breathed
into the same upholstery overhead used to
haunt the wakeful in old English inns to
the numbering of sleep.
There 10 a.growing admiration unfortu-
nateiy for tufted bedsteads. They are in
the long run neither clean nor wholesome
and not easily kept from vermin;
but they arc undeniably handsome,
and recall the imperial beds Of state
apartments, where kings and queens
are supposed to seek that repose
which comes 50 INV willingly to them, but
so readily to the ploughboy. These up
holstered, tufted. satin-covered bedsteads
should b fitted with canopy, and from
this should hang . baldachin and side
curtains. Certain very beautiful speci.
mems of this regal arrangement bought in
Italy are in the Vanderbilt palaces in New
York. Opulent purchasers can get copies
at the great furnishing houses, but II is
becoming difficult to get the real antiques.
Travellers IN Brittany find the most won
cerful carved bedsteads built into the wall,
ished fisher folk, who had no idea how
valuable was their smoke-stained carved
oak.
But a. to the making up of tho bed.
There are nowadays, cleanly springs and
hair mattresses piled high, in place Of the
old feather beds; and as to stiff, white bed
covers, pillow slips and shams, false sheets
med and rufhed fineries, there is truce.
They we're so slippery, so troublesome and
so false withal, that the beds that have
Known them shall know them no more
forever. They had always to be unpinned
and unlocked before the sleeper could
enter his bed; and they were the torment
of the housemaid. They entailed q degree
of washing and ironing which was end
less, and yet many young housekeeper
thought them indispensable. That idea
has gone out completely. The bed now is
made up with its fresh linen sheets, its
clean blankets and its Marseilles quilt,
With square or long pillows. as the sleeper
Then over the whole is thrown light lace
cover lined with liberty silk. This may be
rs expensive or as cheap as the owner
pleases. Spreads of satin might be used,
covered with Chinese embroidery, or with
patchwork designs, now so fashionable.
one light and easily aired drapery sue
ceeds the four or hive pieces of unmanage-
able linen. Ii the led is tester and the
curtains Of silk or chint2, the bed covering
should match in tint. and in q very pretty
bedroom the walls should be covered with
ohintz or silk.
The modern highly glazed tile paper for
walls and ceiling is an admirable covering.
Us it refuses to harbor dirt. The house
maids brush can well keep it sweet and
clean. Wall papers are so pretty and So
exquisite in design land the makers of il
no longer use arsenical green or white lead
nat it seems hardly necessary to put in
any other suggestion. The aggravating
rectangular patterns, which have confused
so many weary brains and haunted SC
many feverish pillow, let Us hope are
gone forever.
The doors should be of plain. painted
wood, vanished. Nothing can be cleaner
OR perhaps polished or oiled wood of the
natural color, with parquetried borders. II
this is impossible cover your floors with
dark-stained mattings, which are as clean
and healthy as possible. These may re.
main down sil winter.
Readily lifted and shaken rugs have ali
the comfort of carpets and none of their
disadvantages.
Much is said Of the unhealthiness Of ga,
in bedrooms. but If ii does not escape il is
not unhealthy. The prettiest illumination
is by candles in the charming new candle.
sticks in tin and brass, which are as nice
as Roman lamps.
In the old posters Of Cromwell's time We
find . shelf running across the bed, Just
above the sleeper's head-placed there fol
the pcsset cup. This is now utilized with
safety lamp, for those who indulge in
the pernicious practice of reading in bed
hut il Is even better used as a receptacle
for the book, the letter case, the many lit.
tie things which an invalid may need, aud
saves calling nurse.