Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1911-02-07
~ Confessions
,eo. young
ON0Mse&eeper
by Barbara BQv
HEaRT
ono
HONE
TALKS
Small Houses and Large Furniture.
by Barbara BQU

fV7 HY is 1t that houses are made g small and furniture 81 large? The
w rooms In a modern fiat that is, a moderately priced fiat, are about
the size o a hencoop, and the hst floor of a small twostoy house
ouio 70 put entirely Into an old-dme parlor. Houses have shrunk In proper
ton to salaries But furniture, that Is, really beautiful comfortable furniture.
IS still built on tho old-dme grand scale. Even If a person lives In a small
house o a small salary, he likes furniture OF good lines and good quality. But
how Is he going to manage II?
bought a davenport. 1t didn't look big in the store. 1t seemed just an
ordinary size. Besides, a davenport should not only be soft and "comfy," but 1t
snoulo, above all things, be roomy. The minute, however, the wagon with it
drew up In front OF the house began to have nisgNngs. placed It In the
nail n the moment you came In the front door you fell over the davenport |
placed IT n the parior, or hving-room, whichever you choose to call 1t, and half
d Inc poor davenport extended through the doorway into the hall. It had the
appearance Of Al undesred guest trying to mako al escape. The only room In
the house thatt Is II any size lie tho collar, and here the davenport might repose
II 1t could be gotten down there. But the celarway Is o narrow that even a
good-siZed barrel will not go down. So at present the davenport stands like an
elephant In the hail. and when people como W . apologize for asking them to
climb over It.
To be sure could have gotten something smaller by taking a bench with
Stats FOR a back But l didn't wan a bench with Stats. Or could have chosen
a lounge with a seat like New Enghnds granite hills. But when want a hard,
rocky sat prefer to seek the real thing in nature, because there you have at
least the sky and trees and birds as some compensation.
But the davenport Isn't tho only offender Almost every bride who is to
live In a small house knows what she lis up against II she wants to furnish her
panor or livhngroom, whichever she calls It, really comfortably and pretdty
chairs, possibly a Morris chairs and a Turkish rocker, and when she gets but
these things into the modern pockethandkerchif room she can only look In
from the outside, as Eve must have gazed at Paradise when she had passed out
through the gates. The mistress Of the little 10y house could not get into that
room unless she had wings or could transform herself into an ethereal spirit
Entertaining friends there Is an impossibfit. As for looks, II resembles the
showroom Of a furniture factory.
Not only does the housekeeper of moderate means And 1t difficult to get
good small furniture, but she also finds II a problem to discover simple furni-
tue at small cost The lower the price, the more gingerbread decorations do
sideboards and chairs and tables and desks boast Of To get something really
plain and simple, but good In line, costs much money. Why this Is puzzles her
leave 1t of, and surely 1t doesn't cos any more to make pretty lines than ugly
ones. But 80 II is. She finds the san condition when she buys shitwabts
Those that are covered with cheap lace and trashy embroidery cost fifty and
seventynve cents, whereas a wen-cut, perfectly plain waist demands $50 or
$500 to own It, She wonders why painness costs and decoration Is cheap.
And so while W climb over the davenport and gaze into the Hving-room
from beyond Its portals, Jim and wonder just what Is best to do-whether to
continue u acrobatc stunts over the furniture for the sake Of living In a house
to suit us in sie or to move into a larger house for the accommodation Of
the furniture.