154 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
April, 1909 
Furniture for the Small Home 3 
By Edith Haviland 
URNITURE for the small home should 
always express a certain fitness for its posi- 
tion. If chairs, tables and sofas were 
gifted with speech and allowed to present 
this matter from their own standpoint, we 
FAR should, no doubt, be forcibly enlightened. 
For no matter how meritorious an example 
of the cabinetmaker’s art, if it be inharmoniously com- 
panioned it must appear at a disadvantage. 
The glamour that surrounds a piece of furniture of a 
distinctive period often obliterates the question of suitable 
environment, else we would not so often see, in juxtaposi- 
tion, chairs that were shaped to suit the luxury-loving mon- 
arch of a long-past century and the severe lines of the Mis- 
sion, or the classic suggestions of the First Empire associated 
with informal designs in reed, rattan and willow. 
These incongruities in furnishing are so conspicuous in 
the concentrated areas of the small house that every choice 
in the necessary pieces of furniture becomes a matter for 
careful thought on the part of the home maker, and not only 
the origin and historical significance of each article should 
be looked into, but every detail of construction and finish. 
Each division of the house, hall, sitting-room, chamber, 
dining-room, has its own office of usefulness for which the 
furniture must be selected. Even the fireplace has specific 
fittings of its own, which, rightly chosen, enhance the at- 
tractiveness and comfort of the room. 
In the small home good taste does away with elaborate 
detail, showy decoration, tawdry superfluities. If expense is 
an unconsidered factor a finer quality and greater perfection 
of detail may be provided. 
Simplicity does not always 
signify cheapness. 
When mahogany furni- 
ture is to be adopted in a 
dining-room, its best setting 
is white-painted woodwork. 
This scheme is unalterably 
associated with our Colonial 
forefathers, and the tradi- 
tion has not been improved 
upon. In the illustrations 
two different wall treat- 
ments are shown—one with 
a figured covering and plain 
over-curtains, the other re- 
versing this plan by having 
the wall plain and the win- 
dow hangings in a self- 
woven or semi-figured ma- 
terial. Each has its merits, 
the choice usually turning 
on a personal preference. 
In illustration No. 3 the 
feet of the table and chairs 
are of claw-and-ball type, 
with a Chippendale back to 
the chairs. Phe white 
mantelshelf is simply deco- 
rated with brass candelabra 
and two Chinese jars. The 
olive green that predomi- 
1—Wrought-iron andirons of a substantial pattern 
nates in the foliage paper is repeated in the velour curtain 
that is drawn across the window at night. The round linen 
table mat that is used as a “‘between-meals cloth” is em- 
broidered in white, and an iridescent glass vase holds some 
garden flowers. ‘There is no “‘studied simplicity” in this 
room, but an attention to comfort that is based on artistic 
principles. 
The other dining-room illustrated in No. 8 has an antique 
drop-leaf card table brought into service for a dining table. 
To make it of more practical value the legs have been fitted 
with casters. The sideboard is a family heirloom, and to 
supplement these two pieces of furniture harmoniously some 
reproductions of Sheraton chairs were bought in the un- 
finished wood at four dollars and fifty cents for the arm 
chairs and three dollars for the side chairs. At an extra 
cost of two dollars for each chair a mahogany stain was 
added and rubbed down. The buff-colored walls, brown 
silk curtains and dull red of the mahogany furniture were 
enlivened by the bright old silver and glass distributed on 
the table at meal times and used on the sideboard for 
decoration. 
The hall of the ordinary small house is usually devoid 
of interest, but illustration No. 7, with its white-paneled 
wainscot and cozy fireplace corner, is full of charm. ‘The 
round table might, perhaps, be better placed at one side of 
the stairway, but its lines are so good that it can afford to 
be made rather a prominent feature. The plainness of 
the walls is relieved by the figured curtain at the wide door- 
way, and a pleasant vista is had of the dining-room. 
A question that is still under debate as to whether 
Mission furniture has come 
to stay or will wane in pop- 
ularity has its most decisive 
answer in the increasing 
amount that is sold every 
year. It has passed beyond 
the experimental stage, 
when it threatened to be too 
cumbersome for ordinary 
homes, and has been modi- 
fied in its proportions so 
that it is not out of place 
even in the small dwellings. 
The: side chairs wit 
leather seat in illustration 
No. 4 can be used for the 
dining or sitting-room, and 
may be had in two different 
finishes. ‘The price is seven 
dollars and fifty cents. 
The comfortable arm 
chair in illustration No. 9 
is on the well-known Mor- 
ris pattern, but of Mission 
make. Such a chair costs 
from twenty-four to thirty- 
four dollars, according to 
the cushion covers and their 
filling. 
The widespread use of 
Mission or Craftsman fur- 
niture has caused almost a 
