February, 1916 
THE ADAPTABILITY OF SMALL TABLES 
AGNES FOSTER 
49 
Questions on house furnishing and decoration will be answered promptly and without charge 
by this department. Readers desiring color schemes will kindly state exposure of the room. 
Fabrics and articles shown here can be purchased through House & Garden. Send a self- 
addressed stamped eyivelopc. 
The latest type of magazine stand 
accommodates magazines of all 
sizes. It is 26" high and 18" 
wide. $35 
A new tea table is built up like a 
series of trays, each shelf having 
a lacquered panel of Chinese de¬ 
sign. $47.50 
Sill 
The mahogany sofa table is a late type. 
It is long and narrow and serves well 
for tea. The ends let down. $ I 80. 
It also serves as an excellent magazine stand, 
the latest issues occtiping the top and the back 
numbers systematically stowed away under¬ 
neath. 
A very good little magazine stand has lately 
been brought out, to put at the end of a couch, 
a really alluring combination. It consists of 
three shelves, the lower for folio magazines, 
the second narrow shelf for the standard size, 
and the top for a book or ornaments. The 
width of the shelves permits of the titles of 
the magazines being visible. It is a very neat, 
compact contrivance. It comes in mahogany 
or in black or red lacquer beautifully decorated 
in dull gold with Chinese design. In either 
finish it has a strong decorative note, as it is 
of good proportion and unusual in form. 
A Variety of New Types 
W ITH every change of mood and tense of 
fashion, a table can be made to serve 
still another purpose. The small mahogany four¬ 
legged stand enters the household as a sewing 
table; domesticity is usurped by hospitality, and 
we have a tea table; matrimony enters in, and 
we have a small table for 
the smoker; Dame Fashion 
decrees a renewal of console 
tables, and into the hall it 
goes, topped by a mirr Dr and 
supporting a silver card tray 
and a Tiffany iridescent vase 
with one chaste flower. And 
the sad part is, its career is 
not finished; it awaits a fleet¬ 
ing brief span as a checker 
table. 
Among a decorator’s items 
the small table is listed along 
with lamps, hassocks and pil¬ 
lows, as an accessory—the 
small articles that one 
chooses after one’s o w n 
fancy. Little tables provide 
the livable homey look that 
large pieces of furniture 
alone fail to give. They fill 
in the crevices of the 
material scheme. They up¬ 
hold and make possible the 
little luxuries of life—putting 
to our hand the latest maga¬ 
zine, the can of tobacco and 
briar pipe, the caviar sand¬ 
wich and Brew of Pekoe, 
the manicure outfit in the 
boudoir, or flaunt pro- 
vokingly before us the 
pile of undarned stock¬ 
ings ! 
The Double-Decker Table 
What would the maidless apart- 
mentier do without the little serving 
table close to her right hand, double- 
shelved and holding, systematically ar¬ 
ranged each course of her dinner. It 
saves the popping up and down into 
the kitchenette at frequent and discon¬ 
certing intervals, and the hostess may 
serenely serve and the funny story¬ 
teller always come to his bombastic end 
uninterrupted. The tea w’agon well 
serves in this capacity, as afterwards 
it may be rolled out into the kitchen¬ 
ette or behind the screen with its load of soiled 
unsightly dishes. 
In fact, the little double-decker table is ex¬ 
tremely useful in many ways, and proves always 
a good investment for the householder. With or 
without wdieels it is the nicest sort of tea table. 
whereby the center part comes up at an angle to 
form a book or magazine rest. It is extremely 
convenient for working with a reference book, 
or for an invalid, or for one of those ambidex¬ 
terous persons who reads Galsworthy and knits 
mufflers for the soldiers at the same time. 
Synonymous with the 
“cozy corner’’ is the tab¬ 
ouret. The one has sur¬ 
vived, but the other has 
luckily gone the way of all 
vagaries. Atmosphere is 
never created by spear 
heads, rope portieres and 
Algerian fans. There is 
one excellent leftover from 
that unhappy period, how¬ 
ever—a tabouret consisting 
of a large brass tray and a 
base of six legs that can be 
closed together. 
Muffin stands too come 
under the head of little 
tables—and also under many 
other names, such as Lazy 
Susan and Curate’s Assist¬ 
ants. Made of wicker they 
are useful on the porch or 
in the garden. Many de¬ 
signs for small tables are 
now carried out in bamboo 
and wicker, such as tea 
wagons, tabourets, magazine 
stands and countless little 
convenient furnishings, half 
table and half basket. 
The little tip and pie¬ 
crust tables may be used as 
ornamental or useful bits of 
furniture. They are among 
the details that help so 
well to carry out the spirit of the 
Colonial room. They are also among 
those accommodating pieces that are 
there when you want them, but not 
otherwise. 
In order to lend a note of color to 
a room, small decorated tables are 
being largely employed. They repeat 
and emphasize the necessary color 
value. A small painted table always 
looks well in a room with mahogany, 
provided the table is of softened tones. 
You cannot combine the strong colors 
of the crude peasant furniture in a 
room with delicate refined mahogany. 
The painted console table goes well 
in a hall of grey, white and black. 
A table painted in soft tones, as is this, 
can be used in a room with mahogany 
to emphasize the color note. $75 
Another little table of much alluring service 
is a long narrow reading table, about 3' long by 
VS wide. In the middle is an attachment 
For the kiddies’ own room comes this 
painted table with a flamingo perched 
on the bottom cross bar. $36 
