Evening star., 1902-08-02
G A N E FURNITURE
HANDY PIECES SHOWN FOR
PORCH AND LAWN.
Primitive Work of q Few Years Back
Side by Side With Modern
Specimens.
Written for The Evening Star.

ditions'' may be translated sufficient space.
Many suburban families own a rustic sum-
mer house, tent or marquee, and this they
use during the hot weather for a gen.
eral lounging room. Only furniture of the
simplest and most durable qualities should
be selected for outdoors, and to secure
pieces that combine serviceability with pic
turesqueness is more difficult matter
than might be supposed.
Wicker willow chairs have long been
favored, for they are open enough to al
low the air to circulate freely about the
body, sufficiently pliable to be shaped to
fit the figure and strong enough to bear
very considerable strain. Exposure to in
clement weather does not injure willow
furniture, which is something which can
not be said even for the bark covered
chairs are unpresentable, they may be
stained or enameled to look almost as nice
as new ones.
Green or red, the popular colors of the
season, may be easily applied to an old set
of furniture. The colors can be selected
from the card of any dealer in household
paints. No special skill is required in US
ing stains or enamelS. Cane chairs are now
a fad. They are made of the split withes
of rattan or bamboo which are woven bas-
ket fashion or laid in rows to form COM
pact cover for a slender wooden frame.
Cane chairs are a craze which we owe to
our cousins, the Britons. English country
families first made them the fashion, and
certain American women who lately basked
in English hospitality have taken up the
cane furniture with great enthusiasm.
Plated in Colors.
The closely woven cane furniture has col
ored vertical and horizontal stripes, which
give its surface startling plaided appear
ance Dark brown and ocher is one COM
bination of colors, red and green another,
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are laid over the floor of the room in which
the cane chairs are arranged a strictly neu-
tral shade being required to harmonic with
their striking surfaces. Curtains OF In
dian stuffs combine well with the tints of
cane and Of mating; the fabrics may be
purchased in almost every dull shade from
ecru to red. The summer sitting room
should be furnished with the utmost sim
plicity. Especially must this be SO when
bright colored cane is adopted, for it will
otherwise jar refined taste.
The light cane chairs finished In one
shade and supplied with open seats and
open backs are very cool and pretty. Most
of these armed affairs although very
effective designs are shown in low indivld-
ual patterns having scroll-like openWork
support for the back.
Closely woven fine cane with interlaced
wthes of larger sizes is worked into arm
chairs. Most of their frames are modelled
on the styles of century ago. They make
a quaint appearance and have the advan-
many more modern designs.
The fact is that cane chairs are not really
new. Furniture made of woven rusheS was
common in England long ago. Before car
pets were used even In palaces rusheS were
strewn over floors as a protection for the
poorly shod feet. 1t was not remarkable
therefore that the thrifty peasants should
learn to pait and weave the flexible rushes
into covers for stools and chairs. Rush bot
toned chairs were found in almost all
kitchens a century ago.
The Progress Seen.
The elegant patterns now adopted for this
same rush furniture would amaze the prim-
tive chairmakers of even a hundred years
ago Then carved furniture, wrought in
hard woods and richly upholstered, was
preferred by the rich, whether for their
chateaus in the country or for their man
sions in town
Every manufacture turns out his special
style of chairs; some prefer the heavy, sim
pie mission patterns, while others exploit
semi-Gothic kind which is distinctive of
no school or period in furniture making.
Nine-tenths of the women who buy chairs
select them because they look pretty, are
fashionable go well with some other
piece of furniture. 1t is no longer la
mode to have ones chairs entirely alike or
even of one size. Instead they must be
picked up now and then at sales, until the
house looks like a museum devoted to odd
chairs. Willow, upholstered and carved
specimens are set together higgledy pig
gledy, without any regard for harmony.
Naturally this is mistake. Individuality
in furnishing is the result of the adoption
of one kind Of furniture. Bamboo, wicker
cane chairs go very well with some
wooden ones, but not at all with the up
holstered ones. Moreover, when summer
furniture is purchased a keen eye should
be used in examining the merchants wares,
for different shades of the same color very
often are extremely inharmonious. This Is
true especially of greenish, blush, yellow
ish and reddish shades, which are painfully
crude when seen together. Often set will
be imperfectly colored and its lack of har-
mony so slight that only artificial light or a
glaring sun will bring out its bad points.
Red, too, must be closely scrutinized when
several pieces of the same color are being
selected.
As to Size and Shape.
The shape is another important point
A chair should be high enough to sup
port the feet upon the floor; one which
requires the bending of the knees or the
elevating of the feet upon tired toes is
piece of furniture to be Stunned. No mat
ter how pretty chair is, it should be avoid
ed unless, when seated, ones feet rest in a
comfortable and natural position.
The back should have a slight outward
slope Those intended for lounging have
a Slight indentatiCn where the small of
the back is located. followed rests for
the upper part of the body are seldom al
they do not conform to the shape of the
spine.
The seat of a chair should be a little
higher in the front than the back. For
summer stuffy cushions should not be coun-
tenanced. Because the air circulateS
through the open meshes the willow chair
and the cane chair are satisfactory for hot
weather. The framework should be tested
to discover its solidity. Nothing is more
embarrassing to a hostess than to own
chair which creaks rudely under the
awful pounds of some sensitive fat friend.
Neither is there anything more wearing
upon the nerves than the creak creak of
one laden with more weight than it can
safely carry. The grimcTacks sold for par
lors are often mere mockeries of dollhouse
furniture.
Rockers Are Passing.
Rockers are out of fashion. The rocking
chair is strictly American Institution and
is seldom seen abroad. The substitute,
chair mounted to swing in sockets, is the
nearest approach to it that the up-to-
date American woman will have in her
house A fashionable repose can never
80 -, r:r,sr -nnt thnr fnrn