46 
House & G ar d 
If space permits and 
the background is in 
harmony, one may use 
an old chest with a 
formal chair beside it. 
The group is natural 
and the chair restful. 
H. B. Russell, archi¬ 
tect 
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH THE LANDING? 
How to Furnish That Half-way Spot One Finds in Almost Every House 
Making It an Intimate Corner of Distinction 
can take your sewing, or dancers use for tete-a- 
tetes. This, perhaps, is the most common 
treatment. 
When the landing is secluded and offers 
privacy, it may be furnished as a writing cor¬ 
ner, with desk and chair. The telephone can 
be there, midway between the two floors. 
If one is so fortunate as to have a landing 
that sweeps out into a balcony overlooking the 
stairs or the lower hall, the space can be fur¬ 
nished with couch, table and chairs. With 
these it becomes a little upstairs reception 
room, a corner for tea, a place of 
informal entertainment. 
In most instances, however, one 
has merely a landing, a halt in the 
stairs. Ordinarily it should be left 
unfurnished, for nothing should be 
placed on the stairs that would im¬ 
pede passage or cause accidents. 
Where the landing is large it may 
have an informal group composed 
of a little table and a chair, or a 
more formal composition of a chest 
and a high-back chair. In the 
former case, this table—say, a 
gate-leg—can hold the family mail 
box or, if it is en route to the bed¬ 
rooms, the night candles can be 
placed on it, ready for guests to 
take their lights as they pass. 
A little group of this sort can be 
made colorful with flowers, in fact, 
one can often turmthe landing-into 
a little solarium where the win¬ 
dows give sunlight enough for the 
plants through the winter. 
Only one warning, however. Do 
not crowd this spot; keep the pas¬ 
sage free. While it is a small item 
in the furnishing of the house, it 
is one that deserves to be handled with re¬ 
straint and a view to comfort. 
The success of any house is the sum of just 
such small corners. Furnish them with care 
and the house as a whole will take care of 
itself. The care required depends upon the 
individual problem, the furnishing on your 
tastes and purse capacity. A stairs landing 
suitably handled, with a view to the passage 
required, can be made one of the most intimate 
and interesting corners of the house and will 
successfully add to its distinctive atmosphere. 
Where there is a balcony, as in the New York 
home of R. H. Gallatin, a table, chair and couch 
can be used. Ingalls & Hoffman, architects 
T he stairs landing is the half-way place 
on the journey to the floor above. In 
most instances it is architecturally necessary, 
for the stairs must turn and the line of ascent 
be broken if the flight is long. This creates a 
little spot that can be made very pleasant by 
the proper disposition of furniture. 
Some landings open on a row of windows 
set in a bay, and there the natural inclination 
is to build in a window seat. Well cushioned 
and pillowed, it forms a pleasant nook where 
the young people can read on wet days, or you 
On a narrow landing a small table and two chairs 
suffice, as in the residence of J. R. Sheffield, Esq., 
New York City. W. B. Chambers, architect 
