Beautifying the Bathroom 
WHILE SANITATION IN THE BATHROOM HAS REACHED GREAT DEVELOPMENT THE DECORATION IS OFTEN 
NEGLECTED—WALL PAPERS AND RUGS WHICH MAY ADD TO THE BATHROOM’S ATTRACTIVENESS 
I T seems curious that the smallest room in a house 
is receiving the most attention. The bathroom is 
as important as the parlor. It has been the subject 
of so much careful consideration during the past dec¬ 
ade that it now has almost perfect sanitation. Strin¬ 
gent legislation has wrested the subject from indi¬ 
vidual discretion. Equipments have changed, im¬ 
proved and multiplied. 
With all this evolution and revolution the absorb¬ 
ing idea has been sanitation. Everything has been 
sacrificed for this object. Now that the goal has 
been won. attention is being turned to decoration. 
While conforming to every law of health, 
the place should be made as attractive in 
its way as any other room in the house. 
Bathing even indoors in a little- room 
may be more truly refreshing if the sur¬ 
roundings are right. The environment should be psychologically 
correct. How delightfully this is being accomplished it is pleas¬ 
ant to observe. 
For purposes of classification bathrooms may be considered as 
of two kinds. First the hospital type, a favorite style. And sec¬ 
ond the familiar home type, idealized. Opinions are divided as 
to which is the more desirable. The choice of types is a matter 
of personal preference when building. It frequently happens, 
however, that one must adapt the sort one finds already installed 
to the style one prefers. Fortunately there are always latent pos¬ 
sibilities. How to make the most of these depends upon the 
knowledge of working materials and how to use them to obtain 
best results. For the present article we will confine ourselves to 
making rooms attractive and leave the matter of novel equip¬ 
ments and luxuries to be considered on a later occasion. 
Before going into details of decoration we pause to make one 
suggestion by way of preface. Keep the bathroom what the 
name signifies. Let it be a lavatory only. Eliminate the toilette. 
Put that in a separate room even if it be tiny. This may mean 
taking space from the bathroom itself, but the convenience of 
both rooms will be more than doubled. 
With this hint as to arrangement we may take up the two styles 
of rooms as above classified. Regarding the first 
or “hospital" type, we may say the term is used 
here in an appreciative and special sense. So im¬ 
maculate is everything in such a room that one in¬ 
stinctively feels as if everything, floor, walls, ceil¬ 
ing, accessories and even the air, had been steri¬ 
lized. One is confronted with highly glazed til¬ 
ings. The whole scheme is as a crystal to a dia¬ 
mond. It has all the clarity and purity—without 
the glow and color. But it is the option of the 
housewife to add certain decorative elements. 
Suppose, instead of having white tiles only, some 
tinted ones were introduced in the tiled 
floor, in the lower third of the wall or in 
some simple frieze effect. Use this same 
tone as the keynote for the color scheme 
of the entire decoration. Choose a wash¬ 
able rug that has this hue dominant. Bring the color into promi¬ 
nence again in the linen. Select towels with borders of the color. 
Or if white linen only is desired, have monograms and embroi¬ 
deries worked in the right shade. Thus the monotony is re¬ 
lieved by the color introduced. 
Where the tiles are unglazed, or walls are painted, stenciling 
makes an excellent ornamentation. The designs illustrated are 
unique and especially appropriate. They have the right spirit. 
Conventionalized fishes, waves and seaweed form the theme for 
the frieze section, while turtle and trident are strikingly brought 
into relief in a separate motif. These designs may be used alone 
or in combination. The turtles and tridents make attractive cor¬ 
ner pieces. They may also be introduced occasionally at regu¬ 
lar intervals between repeats of the frieze. 
Another good use for these stencil designs is to apply them to 
bathroom rugs. Any suitable material that will wash, preferably 
white, may form the basis of such rugs. The design may be used 
as an entire border or to decorate the ends only. 
While these stencil rugs are unique and can be made at home, 
yet the rush of modern life leaves most of us little time, and we 
avail ourselves of factory products. This season shows some 
admirable designs. For example, one rug illustrated has for its 
It 
The turtle and trident 
is attractive as a 
corner piece or at 
intervals in a frieze 
by Lydia LeBaron Walker 
Photographs by the author and others 
Wall papers may be washable and sanitary without the sacrifice of beauty. At the left is the kingfisher design and at the right the sea gulls above 
the ocean; the central paper combines a conventionalized design with the suggestion of tiling 
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