Book: Principles of Home Decoration

C >> Candace Wheeler >> Principles of Home Decoration



[Frontispiece: Dining-room in "Pennyroyal" (in Mrs. Boudinot Keith's
Cottage, Onteora)]




Principles of Home Decoration

With Practical Examples

By

Candace Wheeler




New York

Doubleday, Page & Company

1903

Published February 1903




CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. Decoration as an Art.
Decoration in American Homes.
Woman's Influence in Decoration.

CHAPTER II. Character in Homes.

CHAPTER III. Builders' Houses.
Expedients.

CHAPTER IV. Colour in Houses.
Colour as a Science.
Colour as an Influence.

CHAPTER V. The Law of Appropriateness.
Cleanliness and Harmony Tastefully Combined.
Bedroom Furnished in Accordance with
Individual Tastes.

CHAPTER VI. Kitchens.
Treatment of Walls from a Hygienic Point of View.

CHAPTER VII. Colour with Reference to Light.
Examples of the Effects of Light on Colour.
Gradation of Colour.

CHAPTER VIII.
Walls, Ceilings and Floors.
Treatment and Decoration of Walls.
Use of Tapestry. Leather and Wall-Papers.
Panels of Wood, Painted Walls. Textiles.

CHAPTER IX.
Location of the House.
Decoration Influenced by Situation.

CHAPTER X.
Ceilings.
Decorations in Harmony with Walls.
Treatment in Accordance with Size of Room.

CHAPTER XI.
Floors and Floor Coverings.
Treatment of Floors--Polished Wood, Mosaics.
Judicious Selection of Rugs and Carpets.

CHAPTER XII.
Draperies.
Importance of Appropriate Colours.
Importance of Appropriate Textures.

CHAPTER XIII
Furniture.
Character in Rooms.
Harmony in Furniture.
Comparison Between Antique and Modern Furniture.
Treatment of the Different Rooms.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Dining-room in "Penny-royal" (Mrs. Boudinot Keith's cottage, Onteora)

Hall in city house, showing effect of staircase divided and turned to
rear

Stenciled borders for hall and bathroom decorations

Sitting-room in "Wild Wood," Onteora (belonging to Miss Luisita Leland)

Large sitting-room in "Star Rock" (country house of W.E. Connor, Esq.,
Onteora)

Painted canvas frieze and buckram frieze for dining-room

Square hall in city house

Colonial chairs and sofa (belonging to Mrs. Ruth McEnery Stuart)

Colonial mantel and English hob-grate (sitting-room in Mrs. Candace
Wheeler's house)

Sofa designed by Mrs. Candace Wheeler, for N.Y. Library in "Woman's
Building," Columbia Exposition

Rustic sofa and tables in "Penny-royal" (Mrs. Boudinot Keith's cottage,
Onteora)

Dining-room in "Star Rock" (country house of W.E. Connor, Esq., Onteora)


Dining-room in New York house showing leaded-glass windows

Dining-room in New York home showing carved wainscoting and painted
frieze

Screen and glass windows in house at Lakewood (belonging to Clarence
Root, Esq.)





Principles of Home Decoration




CHAPTER I

DECORATION AS AN ART

"_Who creates a Home, creates a potent spirit which in turn doth fashion
him that fashioned._"


Probably no art has so few masters as that of decoration. In England,
Morris was for many years the great leader, but among his followers in
England no one has attained the dignity of unquestioned authority; and
in America, in spite of far more general practice of the art, we still
are without a leader whose very name establishes law.

It is true we are free to draw inspiration from the same sources which
supplied Morris and the men associated with him in his enthusiasms, and
in fact we do lean, as they did, upon English eighteenth-century
domestic art--and derive from the men who made that period famous many
of our articles of faith; but there are almost no authoritative books
upon the subject of appropriate modern decoration. Our text books are
still to be written; and one must glean knowledge from many sources,
shape it into rules, and test the rules, before adopting them as safe
guides.

Yet in spite of the absence of authoritative teaching, we have learned
that an art dependent upon other arts, as decoration is upon building
and architecture, is bound to follow the principles which govern them.
We must base our work upon what has already been done, select our
decorative forms from appropriate periods, conform our use of colour to
the principles of colour, and be able to choose and apply all
manufactures in accordance with the great law of appropriateness. If we
do this, we stand upon something capable of evolution and the creation
of a system.

In so far as the principles of decoration are derived from other arts,
they can be acquired by every one, but an exquisite feeling in their
application is the distinguishing quality of the true decorator.

There is quite a general impression that house-decoration is not an art
which requires a long course of study and training, but some kind of
natural knack of arrangement--a faculty of making things "look pretty,"
and that any one who has this faculty is amply qualified for "taking up
house-decoration." Indeed, natural facility succeeds in satisfying many
personal cravings for beauty, although it is not competent for general
practice.

Of course there are people, and many of them, who are gifted with an
inherent sense of balance and arrangement, and a true eye for colour,
and--given the same materials--such people will make a room pleasant and
cozy, where one without these gifts would make it positively ugly. In so
far, then, individual gifts are a great advantage, yet one possessing
them in even an unusual degree may make great mistakes in decoration.
What _not_ to do, in this day of almost universal experiment, is perhaps
the most valuable lesson to the untrained decorator. Many of the rocks
upon which he splits are down in no chart, and lie in the track of what
seems to him perfectly plain sailing.

There are houses of fine and noble exterior which are vulgarized by
uneducated experiments in colour and ornament, and belittled by being
filled with heterogeneous collections of unimportant art. Yet these very
instances serve to emphasize the demand for beautiful surroundings, and
in spite of mistakes and incongruities, must be reckoned as efforts
toward a desirable end.

In spite of a prevalent want of training, it is astonishing how much we
have of good interior decoration, not only in houses of great
importance, but in those of people of average fortunes--indeed, it is in
the latter that we get the general value of the art.

This comparative excellence is to be referred to the very general
acquirement of what we call "art cultivation" among American women, and
this, in conjunction with a knowledge that her social world will be apt
to judge of her capacity by her success or want of success in making her
own surroundings beautiful, determines the efforts of the individual
woman. She feels that she is expected to prove her superiority by living
in a home distinguished for beauty as well as for the usual orderliness
and refinement. Of course this sense of obligation is a powerful spur to
the exercise of natural gifts, and if in addition to these she has the
habit of reasoning upon the principles of things, and is sufficiently
cultivated in the literature of art to avoid unwarrantable experiment,
there is no reason why she should not be successful in her own
surroundings.

The typical American, whether man, or woman, has great natural facility,
and when the fact is once recognized that beauty--like education--can
dignify any circumstances, from the narrowest to the most opulent, it
becomes one of the objects of life to secure it. _How_ this is done
depends upon the talent and cultivation of the family, and this is often
adequate for excellent results.

It is quite possible that so much general ability may discourage the
study of decoration as a precise form of art, since it encourages the
idea that The House Beautiful can be secured by any one who has money to
pay for processes, and possesses what is simply designated as "good
taste."

We do not find this impulse toward the creation of beautiful interiors
as noticeable in other countries as in America. The instinct of
self-expression is much stronger in us than in other races, and for that
reason we cannot be contented with the utterances of any generation,
race or country save our own. We gather to ourselves what we personally
enjoy or wish to enjoy, and will not take our domestic environment at
second hand. It follows that there is a certain difference and
originality in our methods, which bids fair to acquire distinct
character, and may in the future distinguish this art-loving period as a
maker of style.

A successful foreign painter who has visited this country at intervals
during the last ten years said, "There is no such uniformity of
beautiful interiors anywhere else in the world. There are palaces in
France and Italy, and great country houses in England, to the
embellishment of which generations of owners have devoted the best art
of their own time; but in America there is something of it everywhere.
Many unpretentious houses have drawing-rooms possessing
colour-decoration which would distinguish them as examples in England or
France."

To Americans this does not seem a remarkable fact. We have come into a
period which desires beauty, and each one secures it as best he can. We
are a teachable and a studious people, with a faculty of turning
"general information" to account; and general information upon art
matters has had much to do with our good interiors.

We have, perhaps half unconsciously, applied fundamental principles to
our decoration, and this may be as much owing to natural good sense as
to cultivation. We have a habit of reasoning about things, and acting
upon our conclusions, instead of allowing the rest of the world to do
the reasoning while we adopt the result. It is owing to this conjunction
of love for and cultivation of art, and the habit of materializing what
we wish, that we have so many thoroughly successful interiors, which
have been accomplished almost without aid from professional artists. It
is these, instead of the smaller number of costly interiors, which give
the reputation of artistic merit to our homes.

Undoubtedly the largest proportion of successful as well as
unsuccessful domestic art in our country is due to the efforts of women.
In the great race for wealth which characterizes our time, it is
demanded that women shall make it effective by so using it as to
distinguish the family; and nothing distinguishes it so much as the
superiority of the home. This effort adheres to small as well as large
fortunes, and in fact the necessity is more pronounced in the case of
mediocre than of great ones. In the former there is something to be made
up--some protest of worth and ability and intelligence that helps many a
home to become beautiful.

As I have said, a woman feels that the test of her capacity is that her
house shall not only be comfortable and attractive, but that it shall be
arranged according to the laws of harmony and beauty. It is as much the
demand of the hour as that she shall be able to train her children
according to the latest and most enlightened theories, or that she
shall take part in public and philanthropic movements, or understand and
have an opinion on political methods. These are things which are
expected of every woman who makes a part of society; and no less is it
expected that her house shall be an appropriate and beautiful setting
for her personality, a credit to her husband, and an unconscious
education for her children.

But it happens that means of education in all of these directions,
except that of decoration, are easily available. A woman can become a
member of a kindergarten association, and get from books and study the
result of scientific knowledge of child-life and training. She can find
means to study the ethics of her relations to her kind and become an
effective philanthropist, or join the league for political education and
acquire a more or less enlightened understanding of politics; but who is
to formulate for her the science of beauty, to teach her how to make the
interior aspect of her home perfect in its adaptation to her
circumstances, and as harmonious in colour and arrangement as a song
without words? She feels that these conditions create a mental
atmosphere serene and yet inspiring, and that such surroundings are as
much her birthright and that of her children as food and clothing of a
grade belonging to their circumstances, but how is it to be compassed?

Most women ask themselves this question, and fail to understand that it
is as much of a marvel when a woman without training or experience
creates a good interior _as a whole_, as if an amateur in music should
compose an opera. It is not at all impossible for a woman of good
taste--and it must be remembered that this word means an educated or
cultivated power of selection--to secure harmonious or happily
contrasted colour in a room, and to select beautiful things in the way
of furniture and belongings; but what is to save her from the thousand
and one mistakes possible to inexperience in this combination of things
which make lasting enjoyment and appropriate perfection in a house? How
can she know which rooms will be benefited by sombre or sunny tints, and
which exposure will give full sway to her favourite colour or colours?
How can she have learned the reliability or want of reliability in
certain materials or processes used in decoration, or the rules of
treatment which will modify a low and dark room and make it seem light
and airy, or "bring down" too high a ceiling and widen narrow walls so
as to apparently correct disproportion? These things are the results of
laws which she has never studied--laws of compensation and relation,
which belong exclusively to the world of colour, and unfortunately they
are not so well formulated that they can be committed to memory like
rules of grammar; yet all good colour-practice rests upon them as
unquestionably as language rests upon grammatical construction.

Of course one may use colour as one can speak a language, purely by
imitation and memory, but it is not absolutely reliable practice; and
just here comes in the necessity for professional advice.

There are many difficulties in the accomplishment of a perfect
house-interior which few householders have had the time or experience to
cope with, and yet the fact remains that each mistress of a house
believes that unless she vanquishes all difficulties and comes out
triumphantly with colours flying at the housetop and enjoyment and
admiration following her efforts, she has failed in something which she
should have been perfectly able to accomplish. But the obligation is
certainly a forced one. It is the result of the modern awakening to the
effect of many heretofore unrecognized influences in our lives and the
lives and characters of our children. A beautiful home is undoubtedly a
great means of education, and of that best of all education which is
unconscious. To grow up in such a one means a much more complete and
perfect man or woman than would be possible without that particular
influence.

But a perfect home is never created all at once and by one person, and
let the anxious house-mistress take comfort in the thought. She should
also remember that it is in the nature of beauty to _grow_, and that a
well-rounded and beautiful family life adds its quota day by day. Every
book, every sketch or picture--every carefully selected or
characteristic object brought into the home adds to and makes a part of
a beautiful whole, and no house can be absolutely perfect without all
these evidences of family life.

It can be made ready for them, completely and perfectly ready, by
professional skill and knowledge; but if it remained just where the
interior artist or decorator left it, it would have no more of the
sentiment of domesticity than a statue.




CHAPTER II

CHARACTER IN HOUSES

"_For the created still doth shadow forth the mind and will which made
it._

"_Thou art the very mould of thy creator_."


It needs the combined personality of the family to make the character of
the house. No one could say of a house which has family character, "It
is one of ----'s houses" (naming one or another successful decorator),
because the decorator would have done only what it was his business to
do--used technical and artistic knowledge in preparing a proper and
correct background for family life. Even in doing that, he must consult
family tastes and idiosyncracies if he has the reverence for
individuality which belongs to the true artist.

A domestic interior is a thing to which he should give knowledge and not
personality, and the puzzled home-maker, who understands that her world
expects correct use of means of beauty, as well as character and
originality in her home, need not feel that to secure the one she must
sacrifice the other.

An inexperienced person might think it an easy thing to make a beautiful
home, because the world is full of beautiful art and manufactures, and
if there is money to pay for them it would seem as easy to furnish a
house with everything beautiful as to go out in the garden and gather
beautiful flowers; but we must remember that the world is also full of
ugly things--things false in art, in truth and in beauty--things made to
_sell_--made with only this idea behind them, manufactured on the
principle that an artificial fly is made to look something like a true
one in order to catch the inexpert and the unwary. It is a curious fact
that these false things--manufactures without honesty, without
knowledge, without art--have a property of demoralizing the spirit of
the home, and that to make it truly beautiful everything in it must be
genuine as well as appropriate, and must also fit into some previously
considered scheme of use and beauty.

The esthetic or beautiful aspect of the home, in short, must be created
through the mind of the family or owner, and is only maintained by its
or his susceptibility to true beauty and appreciation of it. It must, in
fact, be a visible mould of invisible matter, like the leaf-mould one
finds in mineral springs, which show the wonderful veining, branching,
construction and delicacy of outline in a way which one could hardly be
conscious of in the actual leaf.

If the grade or dignity of the home requires professional and scholarly
art direction, the problem is how to use this professional or artistic
advice without delivering over the entire creation into stranger or
alien hands; without abdicating the right and privilege of personal
expression. If the decorator appreciates this right, his function will
be somewhat akin to that of the portrait painter; both are bound to
represent the individual or family in their performances, each artist
using the truest and best methods of art with the added gift of grace or
charm of colour which he possesses, the one giving the physical aspect
of his client and the other the mental characteristics, circumstances,
position and life of the house-owner and his family. This is the true
mission of the decorator, although it is not always so understood. What
is called business talent may lead him to invent schemes of costliness
which relate far more to his own profit than to the wishes or character
of the house-owner.

But it is not always that the assistance of the specialist in decoration
and furnishing is necessary. There are many homes where both are quite
within the scope of the ordinary man or woman of taste. In fact, the
great majority of homes come within these lines, and it is to such
home-builders that rules, not involving styles, are especially of use.

The principles of truth and harmony, which underlie all beauty, may be
secured in the most inexpensive cottage as well as in the broadest and
most imposing residence. Indeed, the cottage has the advantage of that
most potent ally of beauty--simplicity--a quality which is apt to be
conspicuously absent from the schemes of decoration for the palace.




CHAPTER III

BUILDERS' HOUSES

"_Mine own hired house_."


A large proportion of homes are made in houses which are not owned, but
leased, and this prevents each man or family from indicating personal
taste in external aspect. A rich man and house-owner may approximate to
a true expression of himself even in the outside of his house if he
strongly desires it, but a man of moderate means must adapt himself and
his family to the house-builder's idea of houses--that is to say, to the
idea of the man who has made house-building a trade, and whose
experiences have created a form into which houses of moderate cost and
fairly universal application may be cast.

Although it is as natural to a man to build or acquire a home as to a
bird to build a nest, he has not the same unfettered freedom in
construction. He cannot always adapt his house either to the physical or
mental size of his family, but must accept what is possible with much
the same feeling with which a family of robins might accommodate
themselves to a wren's nest, or an oriole to that of a barn-swallow. But
the fact remains, that all these accidental homes must, in some way, be
brought into harmony with the lives to be lived in them, and the habits
and wants of the family; and not only this, they must be made attractive
according to the requirements of cultivated society. The effort toward
this is instructive, and the pleasure in and enjoyment of the home
depends upon the success of the effort. The inmates, as a rule, are
quite clear as to what they want to accomplish, but have seldom had
sufficient experience to enable them to remedy defects of construction.

There are expedients by which many of the malformations and uglinesses
of the ordinary "builder's house" may be greatly ameliorated, various
small surgical operations which will remedy badly planned rooms, and
dispositions of furniture which will restore proportion. We can even, by
judicious distribution of planes of colour, apparently lower or raise a
ceiling, and widen or lengthen a room, and these expedients, which
belong partly to the experience of the decorator, are based upon laws
which can easily be formulated. Every one can learn something of them by
the study of faulty rooms and the enjoyment of satisfactory ones.
Indeed, I know no surer or more agreeable way of getting wisdom in the
art of decoration than by tracing back sensation to its source, and
finding out why certain things are utterly satisfactory, and certain
others a positive source of discomfort.

In what are called the "best houses" we can make our deductions quite
as well as in the most faulty, and sometimes get a lesson of avoidance
and a warning against law-breaking which will be quite as useful as if
it were learned in less than the best.

There is one fault very common in houses which date from a period of
some forty or fifty years back, a fault of disproportionate height of
ceilings. In a modern house, if one room is large enough to require a
lofty ceiling, the architect will manage to make his second floor upon
different levels, so as not to inflict the necessary height of large
rooms upon narrow halls and small rooms, which should have only a height
proportioned to their size. A ten-foot room with a thirteen-foot ceiling
makes the narrowness of the room doubly apparent; one feels shut up
between two walls which threaten to come together and squeeze one
between them, while, on the other hand, a ten-foot room with a
nine-foot ceiling may have a really comfortable and cozy effect.

In this case, what is needed is to get rid of the superfluous four feet,
and this can be done by cheating the eye into an utter forgetfulness of
them. There must be horizontal divisions of colour which attract the
attention and make one oblivious of what is above them.

Every one knows the effect of a paper with perpendicular stripes in
apparently heightening a ceiling which is too low, but not every one is
equally aware of the contrary effect of horizontal lines of varied
surface. But in the use of perpendicular lines it is well to remember
that, if the room is small, it will appear still smaller if the wall is
divided into narrow spaces by vertical lines. If it is large and the
ceiling simply low for the size of the room, a good deal can be done by
long, simple lines of drapery in curtains and portieres, or in choosing
a paper where the composition of design is perpendicular rather than
diagonal.

To apparently lower a high ceiling in a small room, the wall should be
treated horizontally in different materials. Three feet of the base can
be covered with coarse canvas or buckram and finished with a small wood
moulding. Six feet of plain wall above this, painted the same shade as
the canvas, makes the space of which the eye is most aware. This space
should be finished with a picture moulding, and the four superfluous
feet of wall above it must be treated as a part of the ceiling. The
cream-white of the actual ceiling should be brought down on the side
walls for a space of two feet, and this has the effect of apparently
enlarging the room, since the added mass of light tint seems to broaden
it. There still remain two feet of space between the picture moulding
and ceiling-line which may be treated as a _ceiling-border_ in
inconspicuous design upon the same cream ground, the design to be in
darker, but of the same tint as the ceiling.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.