Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-03-28
FURNISHING A HOUSE.
Some Seasonable Suggestions to Aid
in Entertaining Well.
HOW TO FURNISH BED ROOMS.
The Country House should he Made Pleas
ant stopping Piace-The Guest Chambers
and Living Reems-Iusxpenstvc but Com
Portable Accessories.
Copyrighted.


YNHE HOSTESS, IN FURNISHING HER
Il house, should also supply it we'll with
lunch baskets for picnics. These come
now cheap and well fitted up with drinking
cups, knives and forks and spoons corkscrews
sandwich boxes, &c. These and great supply
of unbreakable cups for the lawn-tennis ground
are very valuable.
Also any number of implanted pals and
small pitchers to carry hot water, several
services OF plain tea things, and japanese wait
ers, on which to send tea to the bed rooms, and
in every room should be placed table thor
oughly furnished with writing msterials, and
with all the conveniences for writing, sealing
and posting letter.
| THE oLD-FAsHIoNEp BEpsTEADs.
Shakespeare's bequest to his wife of his sec
| ond best bed has passed with a bit Of post-mor-
tenn ungallantry, which has dimmed his fame
| as a model husband. but il would today, "that
second best bed" be a very handsome beuuest,
not only that it was Shakespeare's. but because
| 1t was doubtless q tester. for which there is
a craze All the old four-pos.ers which our
grandmas sent to the garnet ere on their way
| back again to the model bed room. With all
our rage for ventilation and fresh air we no
longer fear the bed curtains, which few years
| ago were supposed to foster disease and death,
because the model bed room can be now fur
nished with an inlet ventilator for admitting
| the fresh air from without as we'll as an outlet
one for permitting the egress of the air Each
gas bracket Is provided with pipe placed above
| 1t and piercing the WALL through which the
! product OF combustion is carried out Of the
| house.
BED CURTAINS.
| As for the bed curtains, they are hung on
rods with brass rings, no canopy on top, SO
that the curtains can be shaken and busted
freely. This is great improvement on the old
upholstered top, which recalls Dickens de-
scription 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
| sleepers had breathed into the same upholstery
overhead used to haunt the wakeful in old En-
glish inns to the numbering OF sleep.
TUFTED BEDsTEADs
There is a growing admiration unfortunately
for tufted bedsteads. They are in the long run
neither clean nor wholesome andl not easily
kept from vermin; but they are undeniably
handsome, and recall the imperial beds of state
apartments, where kings and queens are sup
posed to seek that repose which comes SO un-
willingly to them, but SO readily to the plough
boy. These upholstered tufted satin-covered
bedsteads should be fitted with q canopy and
from this should hang a baldachin and side
this regal arrangement bought in Italy are In
the Vanderbilt palaces in New York. Opulent
purchasers can get copies at the great furnish
Ing houses, but it is becoming difficult to get
the real antiques. Travellers in Brittany find
the most wonderful carved bedsteads built into
the wall, and are always buying them of the
astonished fisher folk, who had no idea how
valuable was their smoke-stained carved oak.
BUT AS TO THE MAKING UP OF THE BED.
There are nowadays clearly 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 and Valenciennes
trimmings monogrammed and rufiied ineries
there is a truce. They were slippery, 30
troublesome and SO false withal that the beds
that have known them shall know them no
more forever. They had always to be I'M
pinned and unlocked before the sleeper could
enter his bed, and they were the torment Of the
housemaid. They entailed degree of
and yet many a 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 fancies with boil
ster in plain linen sheath. Then over the
whole is thrown a light lace cover lined with
Liberty silk. This may be expensive or as
cheap as the owner pleases. Spreads of satin
might be used, covered with Chinese en-
-
fashionable. One light and easily aired dra-
perry succeeds the four or five pieces Of unman-
ageable linen. II the bed is a tester and the
curtains of silk or chintz the bed covering
should match in tint and in a very pretty bed
room the walls should be covered with chintz
or silk.
TILE PAPER FOR WALLS AND CEILING.
The modern highly glazed tile paper for walls
and ceiling is an admirable covering, rs it re-
fuses to harbor dirt. The housemaid's brush
can well keep it sweet and clean. Wall papers
are SO pretty and SO exquisite in design land
the makers of them no longer use arsenical green
or white Lead that it seems hardly necessary to
put in any other suggestion. The aggravating
old rectangular patterns, which have confused
80 many weary brains and haunted SO many a
feverish pillow, let us hope are gone forever.
on THE FLOORS.
The floors should be of plain, painted wood,
Misunderstanding can be cleaner-or per-
haps polished or oiled wood of the natural
color. with parquetried borders. If this is i'm
possible cover your floor with dark-stained
mattings. which are as clean and healthy as
possible. These may remain down all winter.
Readily lifted and shaken rugs have all the
comfort Of carpets and none Of their disad-
vantages.
LIeHTrga OF ROOMS.
Much is said of the unhealthiness Of gas in
pcu IoOius, Dut Ii IL uOeS not escape IL Is not
unhealthy. The prettiest illumination is by
candles in the charming new candlesticks in
tin and brass, which are as nice as Roman
lamps.
In the old posters of Cromwells time we And
shelf running a,ross the bed, just above the
sleepers head-placed there for the posset cup.
This is now utilized with safety lamp. for
those who indulge in the pernicious practice of
reading in bed, but it is even better used as u
receptacle for the book, the letter case xhe
many little things which an invalid may need,
and saves calling q nurse.
PAINT AND WOODWORK.
All paint used in a model bed room should
be unpoisonoas. The fireplace should be tiled
and the windows made with deep beading on
the sill. This is piece Of wood like the rest
Of the frame, winch comes up two or three
inches in front OF the lower part of the win
dow. The object of this is to admit of the
lower sash being raised without causing
draught. The room is Thus ventilated by the
air filtering through the slight aperture be-
tween the upper and lower sashes. Above all
things have an open fireplace in the bed ROOM
Abolish stoves from that sacred precinct Use
wood ii possible; il not, the softest of camel
coal. Have brass rods placed to hand portieres
in winter. i
PoRTIEhEss AND CURTAINS
may DO chesply made Of ingram carpet en-
broidersd, Turkish or Indian stufs, splendid
Delhi pulgasieS "a mass of gold silk embroid-